| Advertisement |
July 5 (UPI) -- The four-day Fourth of July holiday weekend was a violent one in Chicago, with 102 people shot, including 15 fatally. The shootings in the third-largest U.S. city occurred between Friday afternoon and early Wednesday, with nearly half of them during a 12-hour period ending the holiday, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Advertisement
In 2013, the last time the Fourth holiday stretched over four days, at least 74 people were shot, including 12 fatally, according to Tribune data.
The shootings mainly occurred on the south and west sides, where the Chicago Police Department deployed several hundred additional officers on overtime.
The victims ranged from a 13-year-old boy to a 60-year-old man.
Since midnight after the holiday, six people died in shootings.
"That's not adding people that are fighting for their life in the hospital now who may be on life support and might succumb to their injuries," said Andrew Holmes, a community activist, told WLS-TV.
Early Tuesday afternoon, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson announced the arrests of 58 people on drug and gun charges "to keep residents and visitors safe in every neighborhood."
But afterward, at least 42 people were shot between 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. Only two of those were short on the north side.
"It sends a bad message -- that we have a lot of illegal guns on the street. We still have a long way to go," Holmes said.
Mount Sinai Hospital treated at least 22 of those shot over the weekend. Early Wednesday morning, five ambulances crowded into the emergency room's small ambulance bay.
Detectives told WLS-TV they believe several shootings were motivated by gang retaliation and that alcohol factored in others.
On Friday, President Donald Trump's administration announced it is permanently dispatching an additional 20 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Chicago to deal with gun violence that's left more than 1,000 dead over the last 18 months.
