7 dead, 41 wounded in Chicago's most violent weekend this year

CHICAGO, June 17 (UPI) -- Chicago ended its most violent weekend of the year with 41 people injured and seven, including a 15-year-old shot by police, dead, authorities said.

Sunday night an unidentified boy, 15, was fatally shot by a police officer, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Pat Camden, spokesman of the Fraternal Order of police, said officers assigned to a gang crimes unit heard gunfire and pursued three people running away. A statement from the Chicago Police Department's Office of News Affairs said one of the runners stopped to point a weapon at police, drawing fire from an officer.

Kevin Rivera, 16, was killed late Saturday when a gunman on a bicycle shot him as he walked in an alley near his home, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Killed in separate incidents were Jamal Jones, 19, Ricardo Herrera, 21, McGregory Porter, 24, Cortez Wilberton, 31, and Todd Wood, 40.

The violence is unnerving residents of the city.

"I had a family from my parish tell me recently that their 10-year-old son didn't want to come back to Chicago from vacation because of the violence," the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Catholic Church said.