Chicago's 1,000th Shooting Victim Of 2016 Was Shot Yesterday
By Sophie Lucido Johnson in News on Apr 21, 2016 8:46PM
It’s only April, and the number of people shot in Chicago this year has already passed 1,000 this week, according to the Chicago Tribune. Last year, Chicago didn't reach the 1,000 mark until June; perhaps more troubling, the number of people shot in Chicago in 2016 exceeds the numbers for New York and Los Angeles combined.
Chicago's exceeded 1,000 gunshot victims Wednesday, when 13 people were shot over the course of 14 hours. Among those shot was a four-year-old boy, who was hit in the foot as he walked with his mother in the Lawndale neighborhood, police said.
According to the Tribune's records, the 1,000th person shot in Chicago last year was shot on June 4. The Tribune also found that this year’s number of gunshot victims is more than 65 percent higher than the it was at this time last year; this marks a steady rise in gun violence since the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting was released in November of 2015; this rise has coincided with a decline in Chicago police activity, according to recent analysis from FiveThirtyEight.
Like shootings, homicides are on the rise in the city. There have been 161 reported homicides since the beginning of the year, a number 64 percent higher than 2015's homicide count at this time. Gun violence levels in Chicago have not been this high since the 1990s. In 1991, Chicago had 922 homicides, the highest number in the city’s history, according to the Tribune's records.
A CPD spokesperson said that the statistics the department keeps tally the number of shooting incidents in the city, but not the shooting victims. They were therefore unable to confirm if 1,000 people have been shot this year. However, as of midnight last night, Chicago had seen 833 shooting incidents in 2016 so far, police said.