At least 43 people shot, 6 fatally, in violent Chicago weekend
At least six people have been killed and 37 wounded, including a 3-year-old boy, in shootings that erupted across Chicago over the weekend, according to police.
As of noon Sunday, Chicago police had responded to at least 35 separate shooting incidents across the city since 6:30 p.m. Friday, according to police incident reports reviewed by ABC News.
Like other major cities across the country grappling with a rising number of shootings this year, Chicago has deployed a series of strategies to tackle the problem, including a crackdown on illegal guns pouring into the city by targeting firearm straw buyers. Police have also stepped up enforcement in areas that have seen spikes in shootings.
So far, nothing seems to have curbed gun violence.
In one incident early Sunday, five people ranging in age from 18 to 47 were wounded when two gunmen drove up in a silver sedan, got out and opened fire on a group of people gathered on the street. The gunmen then got back in the car and fled, police said.
The mass shooting unfolded just after 3 a.m. in the Austin neighborhood of northwest Chicago, and all of the victims were in serious condition at hospitals, police said. No arrests were made in the incident.
Also on Sunday morning, a tow truck driver was shot and killed as he was providing roadside service to a customer in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side, police said. The 27-year-old tow truck driver, whose name was not released, was working when someone approached on foot and shot him multiple times.
The victim was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. No arrests have been made in the homicide.
On Saturday, five other men were fatally shot over the span of about four hours Saturday.
Two men, ages 29 and 34, were fatally shot in one incident around 12:14 a.m. Saturday as they were walking on a street in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side of the city, police said. Police are searching for a red vehicle they believe the fatal shots came from.
Less than an hour later, a 31-year-old man was found shot and unresponsive on a street in the West Pullman neighborhood on the South Side, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center and pronounced dead, police said. No arrests have been made.
A 21-year-old man was fatally shot around 2:39 a.m. Saturday. Police said the victim, whose name was not released, was arguing with a woman on a street in the East Garfield Park section on the West Side when a gunman walked up and shot him multiple times, including once in the chest, police said. The victim was taken to Mt. Sinai Medical Center and pronounced dead.
A little over an hour later, a 33-year-old man died from gunshot wounds he suffered in the River North section of Chicago's North Side when someone in a blue SUV drove by and opened fire, hitting the victim in the chest, police said. The man was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
At about 10:45 p.m. Saturday, someone fired shots into a home in the Calumet Heights neighborhood on the South Side, hitting a 3-year-old boy in the back, police said. The child was taken to Trinity Hospital and later transferred to Comer's Children Hospital, where he was listed in good condition, according to police.
Meanwhile, a 15-year-old girl was among two people shot and wounded as they were standing on a street in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side at about 11:18 p.m. Saturday, police said. A gunman, who police are working to identify, opened fire from a distance hitting the girl in the buttocks and a 20-year-old woman in the leg.
More than 250 minors have been shot in Chicago so far this year, according to ABC station WLS in Chicago.
The shooting of children over the weekend came just two weeks after eight children were shot, including a 4-year-old who was killed over the Labor Day holiday weekend.
A total of at least 2,490 people have been shot in Chicago this year, a 9% increase from the same period as last year, according to police department crime statistics. The city has recorded 558 homicides, most of them the result of shootings, this year -- a 3% increase from 2020.
