Nearly 50 people were shot in just under 24 hours in Chicago in the city’s latest streak of violence — a streak which has now lasted for more than a year.
At least seven people were killed, including one Chicago police officer who was gunned down in the line of duty on Saturday. A second Chicago police officer remains in critical condition from the same incident.
The past weekend marks the worst weekend of Chicago violence so far this year.
As The Daily Wire reported earlier on Monday, “[t]wenty-nine-year-old [Ella] French, a three-and-a-half-year veteran of the force, died over the weekend after she was shot during a traffic stop. French is the first officer to be shot and killed in the line of duty since [Chicago Mayor Lori] Lightfoot took office in 2019, and the first female officer to be killed since 1988.”
The Chicago Tribune added that at “least 47 people were shot in less than 24 hours in Chicago, seven of them fatally, including a Chicago police officer who was killed by gunfire as she and her partner were making a traffic stop in the West Englewood neighborhood. The slain officer’s partner was also wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday from his injuries.”
The other incidents included two mass shootings, both at separate clubs on the city’s south side.
“Seven people were shot and one killed in a mass shooting inside a lounge in 1800 block of West 87th Street in the Gresham neighborhood around 2:05 a.m,” the Tribune reported. “A gunman, 24, shot a 37-year-old man twice in the neck and three times in the back after the two had a verbal altercation.”
“In the Gresham neighborhood, two nightclub security guards and three bystanders were shot when a person who was denied entrance to the club produced a gun and fired shots before fleeing the scene around 12:45 a.m.,” the Tribune continued.
In her statement on Officer French’s death, Lightfoot blamed guns and “the violence they bring,” even though the city’s issues with illegal guns existed before the summer of 2020 when the city’s issues with increased violence began.
“Today is an official day of mourning for the city,” the mayor said on Twitter Sunday. “We lost a young officer. I offer my condolences to her mother, brother, family, and friends. Please keep this officer, the officer in the hospital, and CPD in your prayers.”
“Some say we don’t do enough for the police. Others say we do too much. All of this must stop. We have a common enemy: it’s guns & the violence they bring,” she continued. “Two young people did what we asked of them: service over self. And one paid with her life.”
The Chicago Police have assigned dozens of officers to a special unit tasked with rooting out illicit weapons pipelines and President Joe Biden, in pledging assistance to the struggling city, also suggested that the federal government could help Chicago stem the flow of illegal guns.
According to the Tribune’s official tally, 365 people have been killed this year so far and 2,021 people have been shot. Chicago’s unofficial violence tracker suggests that more than 465 people have been killed this year, and more than 2,200 have been shot.