Chicago Marks 500 Homicides During Violent Weekend

Sept. 18, 2017
More than 30 people were wounded by gunfire over the weekend, and another 11 were fatally shot as the city marked 500 homicides

CHICAGO — More than 30 people were wounded by gunfire in Chicago over the weekend, and another 11 people were fatally shot as the city marked 500 homicides for 2017, according to police and data kept by the Tribune.

Authorities provided information on 31 shootings in neighborhoods across the city, from Wicker Park, East Garfield Park and Fernwood to Burnside, Washington Heights and Little Village from Friday afternoon to early Monday. Eleven more people were shot to death, bringing total shooting incidents during the weekend to 42.

Four people were shot to death in a rifle shooting in Brighton Park on Friday, as they traveled in a car, police said. Police found their bodies in the vehicle. Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said a woman in the car was believed to be pregnant, but police won’t know for sure until the autopsy.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office on Saturday identified the deceased as Michelle Cano; Ida Arvizu, 28; Joel Sandoval, 24; and Miguel Sandoval, 27.

Brighton Park and the nearby Back of the Yards neighborhood have been the scene of dozens of rifle shootings since early 2016.

In February, the Chicago Tribune reported that gangs in the two neighborhoods were increasingly using rifles styled after AR-15s and AK-47s. At the time, there had been more than 30 shootings believed tied to semi-automatic rifles in the two neighborhoods over the last year. At least 46 people were shot in those attacks, 13 fatally.

Later in the weekend, two neighbors were killed in separate attacks in different parts of the city, officials said. A woman was shot to death near her Southwest Side home Sunday night, hours after a man who lives on the same block was gunned down nearly nine miles away in the South Shore neighborhood on the South Side, according to police.

Authorities were not saying if the two shootings were connected or if the two victims were related. The medical examiner’s office said both of them lived in the 6000 block of South Richmond Street.

Last year, when violence hit levels not seen in decades, the city reached 500 homicides in late August. According to the Tribune’s count, the city hit that number Sunday with the fatal shooting of Juan Bahena Jr., 24, around 4:30 p.m. near 24th Street and Western Avenue.

So far in 2017, the number of homicides is down about 7 percent from this time last year, Tribune counting shows.

The Tribune counts all homicides, including cases considered justifiable. The Chicago Police Department does not include those homicides or ones that occur on expressways. Fatal police shootings also are not counted. As of midnight Saturday, figures from the Chicago police showed 486 murders in the city this year, compared with 521 for the same period in 2016.

There have been at least 2,718 people shot in Chicago this year, a more than 11 percent decrease from the 3,066 shot during the same time last year, according to Tribune data. Chicago police count incidents, not individual victims. As of midnight Saturday, police had recorded 2,089 incidents versus 2,486 in the same period last year, an almost 16 percent decline.

Copyright 2017 Chicago Tribune

Tribune News Service

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