Chicago continues to be a city in massive disarray as violence and crime rule the once-great city.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has captained the city’s descent into a Gotham-Esque landscape ever since her election in 2019.
Last weekend was no different, where the city amassed 52 people with bullet wounds and saw 11 of those wounds end in fatalities.
One of the largest shooting events in the city of the past three days occurred when a caravan of roughly 100 cars appeared at a popular intersection in the city to host an illegal drag racing and drifting competition.
At least 13 shots were fired according to police, with 3 victims being killed. A fourth male was also shot but is expected to recover.
All of these victims were men aged 19 to 21 and all four of them were affiliated with a gang according to the Chicago PD.
The city also mourns the deaths of many victims under the age of 18, after this tragic weekend.
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A 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl found themselves in the way of flying bullets on the west side of the city after two men got out of their cars to shoot the two kids.
A 14-year-old was also hit by a bullet while at a playground on Saturday night. The bullet is said to have grazed his face.
In all of these events listed above, and in many more over the weekend, no arrests were made.
Chicago is estimated to have at least 100,000 gang-affiliated residents in the city, and over 70 gangs fighting over the limited territory in the city.
With these numerous factions and the money to be made from illicit activity in the city, it is no wonder that the city has become a war zone and has garnered the nickname “Chi-raq” among onlookers nationwide.
One man summed up his relationship with the violence in Chicago very concisely in an interview with Crain’s Chicago Business, a local publication.
“I’ll pay my respects, but I’m not going to funerals no more,” he told the interviewer. “I done watched a lot of people leave this world.”
For a city that once hailed as one of the Meccas of the USA, it is jarring to see how far it has fallen.
Now a new candidate is challenging Lightfoot for her Mayorship in Chicago.
Sophia King plans to create a secondary police force that is capable of handling “crucial, but non-dangerous duties.”
“You can use them during surge opportunities during the summer, for festivals, for other events along the lakefront, on the beaches. There’s also some responsibilities on the desk that require officers. That frees up more officers to patrol the communities,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times.
A Chicago politician striving to increase the size and capabilities of the police force is a great sign, and runs against the stripping and disinvesting that the force has seen over the recent years of record high violence.
By: Goose