This Fourth Of July Weekend Could Be Chicago's Most Violent Of The Year
By Mae Rice in News on Jun 29, 2016 8:00PM
The Fourth of July holiday weekend is often the most violent of the year, according to new analysis from the Tribune. Given that gun violence has been on the uptick this year—2016 had the most violent first quarter since 1999, and the city had 1,000 shootings by late April—we could be approaching Chicago's most violent weekend of 2010s, if not the millennium.
The specifics of this year aside, there are various factors at play that make Fourth of July weekend a particularly violent one. Shootings happen more frequently in the summer, according to the Tribune's number-crunching (which made this year's violent first quarter creepily a-seasonal, as well as tragic). In recent years, the Fourth of July has also had more shootings than other summertime long-weekends, the Tribune reports. In both 2014 and 2015, it was the most violent long-weekend of the whole summer, with 85 and 70 shootings, respectively. In 2013, it was the third most violent long weekend of the summer, with 51 shootings.
Read the Tribune's full analysis here.