Sharp drop in weekend violence in Chicago: Nearly 40 shot
By Jeremy Gorner - Chicago Tribune
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Violence in Chicago over the weekend was about normal for summer — at least 37 people shot — and for that city officials were relieved.
The toll was down by more than half from the previous weekend, the city’s most violent in more than two years with at least 74 people hit by gunfire. On Aug. 5, more people were shot in a single day since at least September 2011, when the Tribune began tracking every shooting in Chicago. At least 47 were hit by gunfire, 40 of them during a seven-hour period.
The bloodshed brought demands from community leaders for action, and the city responded by sending in more than 600 extra police this past weekend to neighborhoods hardest hit by the violence. Some of those officers monitored unauthorized street parties, the site of several mass shootings the previous weekend.
There were no mass shootings reported this past weekend. And the total number of people shot — one killed and at least 36 wounded — is not uncommon for summer weekends in Chicago when the weather draws more people into the streets
But police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was cautious in assessing his department's tactics.
"It's not that CPD did anything particularly different," he told reporters Monday. "We looked at large gatherings, of course, and paid attention to them. But crime is cyclical, you know, you never know when this stuff is going to pop out. So we do what we do every weekend to keep crime down in this city."
Officers had been asked to pay particular attention to large gatherings in five police districts: Ogden, Harrison and Austin on the West Side and Calumet and Gresham on the South Side. But more than half of this past weekend's shootings still occurred in four of those districts.
At least 14 people were shot in the Harrison, Austin and Ogden districts and five in Calumet, according to a Tribune analysis. In the Austin District, two people were shot Saturday morning in the 5200 block of West Congress Parkway. Four hours later, a man was shot on the same block.
This past weekend's shootings also included a man shot in both legs early Monday across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park and two cousins, 15 and 17, wounded Friday evening while walking to a gas station in Lawndale on the West Side to grab something to eat. On the Far South Side, officers exchanged fire with one or more gunmen around 1 a.m. Monday while responding to a call of shots fired in the Fernwood neighborhood, police said. No one was injured and no one was in custody.
So far this year, at least 1,869 people have been shot and there have been at least 334 homicides, according to data collected by the Tribune. That’s lower than the past two years, when violence reached levels not seen in two decades, but higher than other recent years.
Johnson was asked if the department will continue to deploy extra officers in targeted police districts. "Yeah, I think until we're comfortable that things are stabilized, we'll continue to have them."
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who came under intense criticism last week, credited the extra resources and "greater focus" on large street parties. But he also mentioned the annual Bud Billiken Parade on the South Side, which celebrates youth and community.
"When the community comes together with law enforcement together, and embracing our children and our future, I think better things happen," said Emanuel, who is up for re-election next year. "So while there's always a valid question about tactics, I also think (there's) a valid observation about culture and partnership. And what I saw this weekend was a city embracing their children, embracing the start of the school year, coming together as a neighborhood, working with law enforcement, working with neighbors."
