Anyone Paying Attention? Another 6 People Killed, 23 Others Wounded in Chicago Weekend Shootings

Nick Kangadis | August 26, 2019
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It's Monday, which means yet another weekend has gone by in the city of Chicago where dozens of people saw themselves fall victim to a shooting. I wonder if anyone will notice this week?

Over the weekend, six people lost their lives and another 23 were wounded in shootings across the Chicagoland area.

Here's an example of the violence, according to the Chicago Sun-Times:

On Sunday, a 17-year-old boy was shot to death in Chatham on the South Side.

About 3:33 a.m., Dontevon Gates was among a group of 30 to 40 people who were gathered in the 8200 block of South Maryland Avenue when shots rang out from an unknown direction, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Gates was hit in the neck and back, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center. A man and two women were also wounded in the shooting.

The total number of shootings victims that MRCTV has been keeping track of since Memorial Day weekend unfortunately keeps rising. At least 600 people have been shot on weekends since, and including, Memorial Day weekend. Out of those 600 victims, at least 75 have been murdered as a result of the wounds they received in weekend shootings. 

Will "the squad" tweet about Chicago today? Probably not. My point is that I keep reporting on these shootings to bring attention to rampant violence plaguing my former city. Occasionally, someone in a public position will bring it up, but it seems to turn out to just be lip service. They'll call for universal background checks or a gun buyback program or some other "solution" that won't help the problem. Criminals don't register their weapons, and I don't they're going to begin that practice any time soon.

Build more prisons and arrest more people. I don't care if that's not a popular take. The clearance rates, the percentage of shootings where the shooter was caught or stopped in some fashion, is ridiculously low, depending on who you ask. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) has their numbers, but those numbers are regularly disputed. Even if you go by the CPD's number of a 51 percent clearance rate, that means one out of every two shootings might see some form of resolution. It's just sad.

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