Chicago Murder Rate Climbs, Four More Killed and Ten Wounded Since Friday

Chicago’s murder rate keeps climbing. Since Friday, four more people have been killed, and at least ten wounded in shootings across the city.

These deaths are in addition to the twelve men who were killed and at least 60 other people who were wounded in shootings throughout Chicago during the holiday weekend. This amount includes eight people who were shot in a West Side attack on Saturday, July 6.

On Sunday afternoon, the most recent fatal shooting occurred in the  Rogers Park neighborhood about 3:45 p.m. According to police, a man was discovered with a gunshot wound to the head in the 1600 block of West Jonquil Terrace. Authorities said that the 22-year-old man was dead on the scene.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office confirmed the fatality. However, they declined to release the man’s name pending notification of relatives.

Earlier Sunday afternoon, a teen boy was shot in the back and killed in the South Deering neighborhood. Police said that the shooting happened about 2:50 p.m. in the 10500 block of South Oglesby Avenue. According to authorities, the 16-year-old was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

The teen’s name will not be released until his relatives are notified.

About  1:50 a.m. Saturday. according to police,  Fernando Sanchez, 25, of the 3100 block of West Le Moyne Street, was fatally shot near Le Moyne Street and Ridgeway Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. Sanchez was standing on the sidewalk when a male approached from an alley and opened fire, police stated.

Police report that Sanchez, in what was apparently a gang-related shooting, was shot in the left side of his abdomen and taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, he died at John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County at 3:36 a.m.

On Friday, about 10:30 p.m., a man was shot to death in the South Shore neighborhood. The man was discovered with multiple gunshot wounds to the body in the 6800 block of South Paxton Avenue, police said.

According to the police, two unidentified males approached the vehicle and shot the man before fleeing in an unknown direction in a dark-colored vehicle.

The deceased man was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:50 p.m. he has been  identified as 25-year-old Jeremy Morris of the 5000 block of South Champlain Avenue, according to the medical examiner’s office.

Authorities said that at least 10 other people ranging in age from 14 to 72 have been hurt in separate shootings across the city since late Friday.

Michael Thompson of the WND newspaper has reported that, according to a police analysis, the death toll by murder in Chicago over the past decade is greater than the number of American forces who have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom.

In addition, police reports in Chicago show most of the city’s massive murder mayhem is black-on-black crime.

During the period of 2003-2011, blacks were the victims of 75 percent of 4,265 murders. Blacks also were the offenders in 75 percent of the murders.

Between 2003 and 2011, 4,265 people were murdered in the city of Chicago. In 2012 alone, 512 people were murdered in the city.

Of the 4,251 people murdered, 3,371 died from being shot. In 98 percent of these murders, the murder weapons was a handgun. Thirty-seven people were killed with a rifle (caliber of bullet not specified), and 40 were killed with a shotgun.

Though these murders are reported by Illinois media sources on a regular basis, there have been some people who have complained that the media, as a whole, seems to pay more attention to cases like the George Zimmerman trial instead of on the outrageous amounts of murders occurring in Chicago.

The implication is that the media, as a whole, isn’t as interested in mentioning incidents of black-on-black violence when compared to hispanic-on-black or white-on-black violence.

One of the reasons, though, that the media has concentrated so much of their collective attention on the Zimmerman trial is that the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law was expected to be front-and-center and focusing on the trail would be a chance to reveal to the nation, and the world, how such a law could justify what would be considered to be murder anywhere else.

Another reason is that, for a vast combination of reasons, Illinois’ strict gun laws have not helped to reduce the gun-related violence in the state. The strict laws, though,  are not the reason why gun-related violence has, instead, increased.

Regardless of the reasons why the murder rate has not gone down in Chicago, critics of gun control often blame the ineffectual gun control laws on the rising rate of murders.

Gang violence, housing conditions, the frustrations of people living life daily and facing drug dealers on every corner, children growing up in single-parent households, etc., are all other reasons behind Chicago’s murder rate continually going up.

These reasons are not ones that can be used to either justify or oppose gun control, however, though reducing or solving these problems would do much to lowering the murder rate of Chicago and other major cities.

If these core problems are not reduced or solved, it’s likely there will be more headlines like the one for this news article. The Chicago murder rate will continue to rise. Without Chicago’s strict laws, maybe the rate would be even higher, maybe not; at least, they are steps that have been taken, though are perhaps more of a bandage than an actual cure.

Written by: Douglas Cobb

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