Chicago rocked by worst weekend of gun violence this year
With at least 100 people shot and more than a dozen killed across the city, what needs to be done to stop the violence? Pastor Corey Brooks weighs in.
Another violent weekend was recorded in Chicago, resulting in at least 18 fatalities and 47 injuries, according to a report.
The fatalities included a 20-month-old boy who was shot and killed Saturday afternoon,
A bullet struck the boy, Sincere Gaston, in the chest as he was riding in a car with his mother from a laundromat. She was wounded after being grazed by a bullet in the neck.
Chicago Police Chief Fred Waller told Fox 6 Now that the family is “going through tremendous emotions and tremendous strife.” Authorities do not believe the shooting was random.
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There is a $25,000 reward in the shooting by a new group called “I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot.” NBC Chicago reported that the group is made up of local business owners.
“I am absolutely ecstatic that these business owners are standing behind me to support this initiative. We need to find this killer,” Earley Walker, the owner of W&W Towing, said.
The Sun-Times reported that three other children were shot over the weekend. Two of them died.
A 10-year-old girl was also fatally shot when she was struck by a stray bullet inside her uncle’s home in Logan Square. Preliminary information showed the gunfire came from a group of males who had been shooting at each other on the block, police said. The gunman was being sought.
“They just can’t believe that she went over there to her uncle’s house and with her other relatives and she was just waiting on her dad to come pick her up and then this incident happened,” Andrew Holmes, a community activist, told ABC 7 Chicago.
Experts say non-suicidal gun deaths in Chicago are on track to top last year. The news comes as the American public is dealing with the stress of the coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout, more awareness of racial injustice and policing, and deeper political divisions in a presidential election year.
“The pain of losing a child never goes away,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Saturday on Twitter. “As a mother, I am tired of the funerals. I am tired of burying our children.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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