Grand Crossing Residents Demand End To Violence

By Anna Deem in News on Jun 27, 2010 5:45PM

Mayer Daley and Chicago Police Supt Jody Weis joined hundreds of churchgoers and Grand Crossing neighborhood residents on Saturday in an attempt to demand an end to gun violence that resulted in 54 people getting shot last weekend in Chicago. The event stretched across 10 city blocks on East 79th Street.

Unfortunately, the violence continued this weekend, with shootings between midnight on Friday and 6 a.m. on Saturday that resulted in two people killed and 11 injured. Among the shootings, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the face on the Northwest Side and a 17-year-old boy was shot in the hip in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Neither of their injuries were life-threatening, nor was anyone taken into custody as of Saturday night, police said.

Denzel Epps, 17, who attended the event on Saturday and whose cousin was shot in 2006, spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times about how hard it is to reach the youths that do most of the shooting. "I don't think this event will reach all of them," he said, observing the crowd dominated by people over 25. "I don't know if it will make them care."