Memorial Day bloodbath: Chicago rocked after 8 killed, 25 injured during holiday weekend crime wave
Since Friday, eight people were killed in shootings across the city of Chicago along with 25 others injured, law enforcement told WLS. The Memorial Day weekend has proven to be worse than last year when seven people were killed and 45 others were wounded.
Authorities deployed about 1,300 extra officers on patrol with considerable help from state and federal partners in an attempt to curb the unnerving crime statistics, considering the extended weekend is typically one of the busiest of the year for the Chicago Police Department.
On Monday afternoon, Deputy Chief Al Nagode spoke to reporters at Foster Avenue beach.
He asserted that he's assigned officers on bicycle patrol across the beaches north of Fullerton Avenue in order to contain any form of retaliation after the shootings over the weekend, reported the Chicago Tribune.
Nagode supervises street patrol operations on the North, Northwest and West Sides.
He said, “We’re balancing the officers that I need on the lakefront, and I’ve got my gang teams and my saturation teams and those guys that are working in the districts targeting not only the individuals that are driving the violence but the gangs that are creating the culture that’s allowing this violence to occur."
Much of the force focused on large groups of youths that caused disruptions to people and businesses in the area. Authorities reported that in one of the attacks teenagers damaged property at a Target store at Clark Street and Roosevelt Road.
While numerous youths were arrest on misdemeanor reckless conduct and disorderly conduct offenses, officers had to push large groups onto CTA Red Line trains at Chicago Avenue and State Street so that they would ride toward the South Side.
“A lot of it is the nuisance that they’re doing. It’s part of what we get with teens,” said Nagode. “The resources it would take me to lock up 100 kids who were fighting would be tremendous, so we have to mitigate, stop the problem and do what’s necessary to make everyone safe.”
The South and West sides of the city witnessed six fatal shootings over the weekend. The first homicide reportedly took place on Friday when a woman was found strangled to death by a passer-by outside an abandoned building in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.
According to law enforcement in Chicago, the first person to be shot to death was 36-year-old Michael Bell who was accompanied by another man who sustained critical wounds. Two armed persons approached the duo and opened fire right after asking them for a cigarette.
Then, on Saturday, Timothy Brown, 34, was found dead with a gunshot wound outside an apartment in West Englewood. Authorities are considering the possibility of his death being drug-related as the neighborhood is notorious for its narcotics activity.
The death knell was next heard by Bobbieana Slyons, 20, who was shot and killed in the Auburn Gresham community at about 8:40 p.m. when she was with her mother and daughter. Investigators believe that she was not the intended target of the shot that allegedly came from a red car cruising in the neighborhood.
Just 20 minutes later, shots were heard in the Bronzeville neighborhood. 17-year-old China Marie Lyons-Upshaw was shot to death at her home. She was allegedly shot by a "male companion", said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi on Monday.
And then again, a couple of hours later, in an unrelated shooting, a man was found shot to death about a block away inside a vehicle in the 5000 block of South Drexel Boulevard.
Finally, in the early hours of Monday, 31-year-old Jeremy Ross was shot in the head and chest after "arguing over a girl" with the shooter in the Austin community, said Guglielmi.
The killings come just days after President Donald Trump expressed how police in Chicago were unable to do their jobs owing to the bureaucracy that plagues the city.
“The killings are at a record pace and tough police work, which Chicago will not allow, would bring things back to order fast ... the killings must stop!” the president tweeted.
The president's remarks also came right after the Blue Wednesday took place in Chicago, which was an event for members of the city's Fraternal Order of Police to address their problems and grievances against Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a City Council meeting. According to the police officers, Emanuel has "turned his back" on them as he runs for his third term as mayor in the upcoming election.
The Chicago Tribune reported that members threw accusations directly at Emanuel during the meeting for casually ignoring their concerns and not taking their interests into consideration, partly due to a consent decree that is in the works with the federal government. According to the said decree, the federal court would have complete oversight over the Chicago Police Department.
According to law enforcement, the said decree "is a shroud for even more anti-police policies."
“You are more concerned with consent decrees, settlements, pandering to police-hating groups than negotiating a contract with us,” said Patrick Murray, union vice president, according to the newspaper report. “Our members are starting to believe you have no intention of negotiating a contract with us until after the next election.”