Another bloody Chicago weekend: gun violence leaves 1 dead, 27 wounded
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Chicago saw a new burst of bloody violence this weekend, with a string of shootings that killed at least one woman killed and wounded some 27 others.
Still, the numbers were down from the previous weekend when a burst of gun violence left at least 11 people dead and around 70 wounded.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the city’s first fatal shooting of the weekend killed a 29-year-old woman on Friday afternoon, police said. Investigators said she was getting an order of protection against a man, who got angry and returned to shoot her in the back. She later died at University of Chicago Hospital from her injuries.
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After last weekend’s frustratingly high violence, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said 400 additional officers already were patrolling areas on the West and South Sides where most of the shootings unfolded. Another 200 were said to be added to affected neighborhoods by this weekend.
Still, many activists have said enough is enough, and have called for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step aside.
“All of us know that this is not Chicago, what we saw,” Emanuel, a Democrat, said after last weekend's shootings. “We are better than what we saw.”
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“We have ordered a series of strategic deployments aimed at keeping our community safe,” Johnson said Tuesday. “These additional deployments will continue to supplement existing manpower.”
“We are taking resources from other areas of the city,” Johnson added. “These are discretionary resources, so we are not taking any manpower from a particular district and relocating them; we’re taking manpower from units that do other things.”
Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., said the crime environment in Chicago has been years in the making, due to neglect.
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“People not having enough space. People not having enough food. People not getting the type of education that they need to get,” Davis said. “People who aren’t sure of what the next day is going to bring them. People who’ve lost hope, who’ve given up on their government.”
Several politicians highlighted the importance of family and community leaders in the fight to curb the violence.
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr. condemned drugs and its profits as “blood money,” and said parents shouldn’t look away when their children come home with goods the adults know they didn’t give them the money to buy.
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“There’s too many blind eyes in our community,” Burnett said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.