We’ve got some sad news coming out from what should have been a happy Father’s Day weekend: Seven people were killed and several dozens more wounded after a wave of gun violence erupted in Chicago. The local NBC affiliate in the Windy City is reporting that there were at least 41 injured.
The weekend’s first fatality happened on Friday night, when two men in their early twenties were shot during a “dispute,” according to officials. One of the men died; the other man’s condition is not known. Then, according to NBC Chicago, six of the fatalities and 13 other shootings occurred overnight Saturday leading into Sunday, including the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy. The most recent shooting occurred on Sunday afternoon, injuring a 21-year-old-woman and a 25-year-old man, who is now in serious condition.
Despite this weekend’s awful bloodshed, overall homicides in Chicago are down this year. The decline in homicides has led Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago police department to take credit for the drop and subsequently “tout the effectiveness of revamped police tactics,” as CBS Chicago notes. Here’s more from the CBS affiliate:
“We had 8 fewer shooting incidents this weekend compared to the same weekend in 2012,” police spokesman Adam Collins wrote in an email sent out early Monday. “While we’ve had fewer murders to date this year than any year since the mid-1960s, there’s more work to be done and we won’t rest until everyone in Chicago enjoys the same sense of safety,” Collins wrote.
As Slate’s crime correspondent, Justin Peters, has mentioned before, the Chicago Police Department’s strategy may not be sustainable.
