After murder rates hit a 40-year low last year, Chicago is again in the grip of a wave of violence that has left dozens dead and forced parents to keep their children home from school for fear of stray bullets.
A weekend spree of violence that ended on Monday saw seven people killed in 36 separate shootings in just the latest bloodshed to draw calls for better gun control from city officials and community leaders.
And with more people out on the streets as warmer weather returns, police are worried the violence will only get worse.
PHOTO: EPA
Twenty-four of the city’s public school children have been slain since the academic year began in August; 21 of them were killed by shootings.
While just one was killed on school grounds — an 18-year-old boy shot to death in a parking lot on a Saturday afternoon — the violence in surrounding neighborhoods has created a climate of fear in the classrooms.
Parents and police are escorting students in high-risk housing projects to and from school in a program dubbed Operation Safe Passage, which began last month after gang violence escalated.
The city has tightened its curfew for teens and is even planning to deploy SWAT teams to help boost regular patrols.
Religious leaders have thrown open the doors of their churches and officials have expanded after-school programs to give children a safe place to play.
Community leaders and students have held rallies and vigils.
And yet the shootings have continued.
“We need to stop the killing right now,” said Reverend Walter Turner whose niece was shot on her way home from church just a few weeks ago.
Much of the violence has been limited to low-income and predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods on the city’s south and west side and can be traced to gangs.
But the Chicago Sun Times said it is time for the city’s wealthier residents to stop ignoring the violence just because they don’t hear the gunfire.
Borrowing the idea of a Colombian newspaper protesting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel movement, the paper reversed the type on its front page on Tuesday and ran a photo of the backs of a group of white people waiting to cross the street.
“We are trying to say to our fellow Chicagoans, in the most attention-grabbing manner we can, that turning our back on the violence killing our young people will not make it disappear,” the paper wrote in an editorial.
But even though the numbers may be down historically, they are still far too high, said Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan.
While the root causes of the violence — social inequality, poor parenting, gangs and drugs — are complex, getting guns off the streets would dramatically reduce the death toll, Duncan said.
“We know the answer and that’s why it drives me crazy,” he said, calling gun violence a public health epidemic.
“What we’re lacking is political courage,” he said.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
RSS