74 Shot, 12 Killed During Independence Day Holiday Weekend Violence
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 8, 2013 4:20PM
The Independence Day holiday wound up being especially violent in Chicago. From Wednesday afternoon through Sunday night 74 people were wounded in shootings across the city; 12 of those shootings resulted in fatalities.
The latest shooting incident occurred in the Roseland neighborhood, where five people were wounded in the 11300 block of South Forest Avenue in what was believed to be a dispute between a landlord and tenants. Among the wounded were two boys, ages 16 and 17. One man remains in serious condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with multiple gunshot wounds.
A witness to the shooting said he was trying to calm things down when the landlord “just up and just start shooting.”
Earlier Sunday two men were shot—one fatally—in an incident near 47th Street and Ashland Avenue in Back of the Yards. Ramon Godfrey, 19, was shot in the back and declared dead on the scene at 3:53 p.m.
In what was arguably the most violent incident of the weekend, one man was killed and another seven were wounded in a drive-by shooting on the 2800 block of West Flournoy Street. A witness to that shooting told DNAInfo Chicago it was like a movie, with the gun used in the shooting was as long as her arm.
The Sun-Times reports the spike in shootings was due to several factors: access to guns; gang beefs; warm weather and a reluctance of witnesses to come forward to police. The shootings were centered in a handful of neighborhoods on the South and West sides, with Austin and Garfield Park accounting for forty percent of the incidents, a stretch of the city covering 8.5 square miles.
In the most high-profile shooting of the weekend, a judge ordered the suspected gunman in a Pullman shooting that injured a 5-year-old held without bail. Judge Adam Bourgeois, Jr. said “there are no conditions I can set to keep the community safe” from Darrell E. Chambers, 24. Chambers is accused of opening fire in Cooper Park on the Fourth of July and wounding 5-year-old Jaden Donald.
Still, even with these numbers, homicides in Chicago are down to date compared with the same time frame last year. 202 people have been killed to date compared to 275 last year.