Posted on 06/08/2020 4:55:01 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
85 people were shot and 24 killed last weekend, the most in modern history in Chicago
A hardworking father killed just before 1 a.m.
A West Side high school student murdered two hours later.
A man killed amid South Side looting at a cellphone store at 12:30 p.m.
A college freshman who hoped to become a correctional officer, gunned down at 4:25 p.m. after getting into an argument in Englewood.
While Chicago was roiled by another day of protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, 18 people were killed Sunday, May 31, making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The lab’s data doesn’t go back further than 1961.
From 7 p.m. Friday, May 29, through 11 p.m. Sunday, May 31, 25 people were killed in the city, with another 85 wounded by gunfire, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
In a city with an international reputation for crime — where 900 murders per year were common in the early 1990s — it was the most violent weekend in Chicago’s modern history, stretching police resources that were already thin because of protests and looting.
“We’ve never seen anything like it, at all,” said Max Kapustin, the senior research director at the crime lab. “ ... I don’t even know how to put it into context. It’s beyond anything that we’ve ever seen before.”
The next highest murder total for a single day was on Aug. 4, 1991, when 13 people were killed in Chicago, according to the crime lab.
Pfleger: A time bomb The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a longtime crusader against gun violence who leads St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, said it was “open season” last weekend in his neighborhood and others on the South and West sides.
“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’” Pfleger said.
“I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour,” he added. “No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didn’t see police anywhere.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on May 31 alone, Chicago’s 911 emergency center received 65,000 calls for all types of service — 50,000 more than on a usual day.
Pfleger noted the systemic problems that have plagued minority communities for decades — like joblessness, food insecurity and a lack of housing — were already heightened by the COVID-19 outbreak, which he said “made a bad situation worse.”
Floyd’s killing in Minnesota simply brought further to the fore the “hopelessness and anger” felt by those living in blighted communities, added Pfleger, who said the current unrest reminds him of the rioting that broke out when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“It’s like a time bomb out here,” Pfleger said. “People are on the edge, people are angry, people are poor, and they don’t even know when it’s going to change.”
If immediate action isn’t taken to address systemic racism, poverty and “black folks being shot down and killed out here like dogs,” Pfleger said the last weekend in May will merely serve as a “coming attraction of what’s going to happen next.”
Most homicide victims in Chicago are young, black men, and the suspects are, too. But murders have fallen significantly in recent years, along with police-involved shootings. There were 764 murders and 12 fatal police-involved shootings in 2016, compared with 492 murders and three fatal police-involved shootings last year.
“The level of activity experienced over the last week has been unprecedented and the Department is actively investigating multiple incidents across the city and working to determine the motives in these cases,” Chicago Police spokesman Thomas Ahern said in a statement. “... The Department is actively working to seek justice for all the residents impacted, especially those who have been killed or injured by these senseless acts of violence.”
Ahern said after “increased violent and criminal activity” on Saturday, May 30, police canceled days off for all officers and placed them on 12-hour shifts in order to direct “our full force of manpower towards Chicago’s neighborhoods, particularly on the South and West Sides.”
‘Positive influence’ slain The weekend’s death toll includes 21-year-old Gregory Lewis, one of six people killed May 30. Lewis was gunned down early that morning while riding in a vehicle in the 500 block of East 115th Street.
Mustafa Abdullah, Lewis’ former dean at Excel Academy of Roseland, spoke glowingly of his former student, who he described as a “positive influence” and a leader who for a time served as the vice president of the school’s student government.
“He was very helpful at deescalating any situations that had potential to kind of escalate into anything further,” Abdullah said. “He was a really good kid.”
Abdullah said he had a “unique” relationship with Lewis. In addition to joking around and “busting on each other,” Lewis also helped Abdullah acclimate to life in Chicago as he was still adjusting after moving from Philadelphia.
“We would sit and talk in my office for hours just about life,” he said. “So just kind of schooling me on the ins and outs of Chicago, the do’s and don’ts. Just kind of what the young people are going through today as far as neighborhood situations or whatever the case may be.”
In recent years, Abdullah fell out of touch with Lewis but said he knew his former student was trying to launch a rap career.
On Thursday, Abdullah fondly recalled a school trip to Washington, D.C., that he and Lewis went on together.
The pair spent the bus ride down poking fun at each other, which served as a constant source of entertainment for the other students along for the ride. Once in the Capitol, the group toured the historical sites and museums and took in a Washington Wizards game.
“I could tell that he was very humbled and very appreciative of the experience of getting the chance to get out of Chicago for a few days and then kind of, proverbially and actually, just letting his hair down and be able to just be a kid,” he said.
They don’t need police, they say.
I know! Abolish the police! That will stop it! /s
Dismantle the PD!
/s
The police shouldn’t do anything but collect names.
See, see! Trump’s harsh, violent, racist tweets again!
White supremacy.
Those black lives dont matter since they were killed by other blacks..so eh, no big deal, no public memorial for them, no one looting in their honor
They'd have fewer of these if the next one were the mayor.
As someone at Second City Cop’s blog said, “Would someone tell the residents on the west side that black lives matter? They won’t stop shooting each other.”
They were all killed by the KungFlu which disproportionately affects blacks.
“The Rev. Michael Pfleger,”
He will be part of the NKVD that will execute you. He is no Catholic. (but then, neither is the “pope”)
Worthless without the demographics of these killings.
“Hey, theres no police anywhere, they aren’t doing nothing.”........You don’t say?
Apparently being an aspiring rapper is quite a dangerous occupation. They are frequently the victims on The First 48.
Is there such a thing as pent up demand to kill others? Fauci and his lockdown is to blame.
This is pretty much a regular weekend in parts of Chicago and other big cities. They shoot each other for sport apparently.
Put cameras everywhere and put it on PPV
Today’s news conference Q/A:
CNN: “Mayor Lightfoot... How are you going to reach-out top these communities devastated by this violence and what is your response going to be to them in the wake of such tragedy?”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot: “This is a clear example of Trumps racist dog-whistle tweets that signal the white supremacists to hunt down the black man in the streets and... “
Lightfoot advisor: “Ah, um... excuse me Mayor, those were blacks murdered by blacks.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot: “Never mind. F**k TRUMP!”
just think of how many thousands of shootings and killings each weekend if the chicago PD is cancelled ...
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