A 1-year-old boy and his mother were among the dozens shot and at least 7 killed in Chicago on Saturday as the city suffers from another weekend of violence — the latest in a string of deadly weekends.
The pair, CBS News Chicago reports, were shot while driving home from a local laundromat in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. The boy’s mother was grazed by a bullet, but the child was shot in the chest and died at a local hospital.
Three other children were among the 46 people shot so far this weekend, according to the Chicago-Sun Times. In addition to the 1-year-old, a 10-year-old girl was killed Friday night when a bullet entered her home on Chicago’s northwest side, a 17-year-old teen was killed after an altercation on the city’s west side, and an 8-year-old girl was “grazed by a bullet” in her home in Englewood.
The 1-year-old boy is the youngest victim of Chicago’s early summer violence, but at least two other toddlers, both around 3 years old, were shot in the last week. One of the 3-year-olds was killed. Police have offered a substantial reward for information leading to that boy’s killer, but so far the Chicago Police Department has not received any credible tips, they say.
A 9-year-old and a 5-year-old are also among the week’s shooting victims.
Chicago’s Police Chief of Operations Fred Waller announced the young boy’s death at a press conference on Saturday.
“It seems like just yesterday, it was actually last Saturday, I was in front of you all talking about a 3-year-old that was killed in the Austin community, and now, here in Englewood, a 20-month-old was killed,” he said. “This is happening far too often. Too many times children are killed by senseless violence, and not only just children but grown-ups also. When is this going to stop? When are we going to say enough is enough?”
“This baby, and all of our residents, deserve better,” Chicago’s police superintendent, David Brown, added Saturday night. “For the sake of Chicago’s children, please come forward to help bring the trigger pullers to justice.”
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot issued her pleas in a Twitter stream.
“It’s on all of us to double down on our all-hands-on-deck public safety efforts with police officers, street outreach teams, trauma support workers, community and faith-based partners. We must ask ourselves: “What are we each doing to make this a season of bounty, not tragedy?” she said on social media. “We all have a role in this fight for the safety of our communities. I ask that anyone with information on these incidents please come forward or submit a tip anonymously at cpdtip.com.”
Crime is down overall in the city of Chicago, largely the result of coronavirus-related lockdowns that kept many residents inside from March until May, but shootings are up. The last weekend in May, Chicago saw its bloodiest weekend in years — the worst since the city hit a crime peak in 2016 — and just last weekend, more than 100 people were shot. At least 15 people were killed.
Late last week, President Donald Trump warned Chicago’s city government that he could be forced to intervene if the city cannot quell its streak of gun violence. Lightfoot fired back at the president on Twitter, but that was before the weekend’s shooting numbers began to materialize.
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