Chicago last month saw its deadliest month in two decades, with 90 homicides, the city’s police department said on Thursday.
The last time the city recorded 90 killings in a month was August 1996, according to Chicago Police Department data.
Last month, there were a total of 384 shooting incidents and 472 shooting victims, police said.
Photo: Chicago Sun-Times via AP
Chicago is on pace to have more than 700 homicides by the end of the year. The city has not had more than 600 homicides in a year since 2003, and not more than 700 since 1998, records show.
More than 140km north of Chicago, police in Milwaukee said that city had its deadliest month for homicides in 25 years.
Milwaukee had 24 homicides last month, the highest total since July 1991. The police department said the city’s per capita rate was higher than Chicago’s last month.
Chicago police blamed the increase in violence on repeat offenders using illegal guns.
“The historical cycle of violence we have seen in some communities must come to an end,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in a statement. “Repeat gun offenders who drive the violence on our streets should not be there in the first place, and it is time to change the laws to ensure these violent offenders are held accountable for their crimes.”
The 90 homicides last month compared with 54 killed in the same month last year. Police said they made 18 percent more murder arrests this past month compared with August last year.
The number of gun arrests this year is up 5 percent from the same period last year, they said.
Five districts on the city’s south and west sides account for the majority of the violence.
In related news, Chicago police said that a 10-year-old girl had been shot in a latest instance of gun violence in the city.
A department spokeswoman said that two men were also wounded in the Thursday afternoon shooting while all three were on a porch in a neighborhood on the city’s west side.
Officer Bari Lemmon said that preliminary reports indicate someone approached the porch and began firing.
Police said the girl was shot in the arm and is in hospital in fair condition. A 30-year-old man was in serious condition with leg, arm and chest wounds, and a 25-year-old suffered ankle wounds and was in fair condition.
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