At least 82 people were shot, 14 fatally, in Chicago over July Fourth weekend, an unusually bloody period even for a city that suffers from high crime. The Chicago Tribune calls it “the greatest burst of gun violence Chicago has seen this year,” citing one breathtaking period in which 30 people were injured or killed in 13 hours:
The bloodiest stretch of the weekend was a 13-hour period between 2:30 p.m. Sunday and 3:30 a.m. Monday when four people were killed and at least another 26 wounded, many of them in critical condition.
In 2012, Chicago was the only city in the country with more than 500 recorded homicides (by comparison, there were 414 that year in New York City, which is more than twice as large). Though the number of shooting deaths has dropped slightly this year in the city, the number of shooting incidents overall was up even before last weekend.
