Chicago Shootings Update: Four Men Dead, 13 Injured Critically

In the latest round of Chicago shootings four men have been killed. This follows a lethal week of shootings in the area which left 13 people in critical condition.

The Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, returned home from Washington specially, following the shootings. Speaking at a Friday night prayer vigil he said : “We cannot allow children in the city of Chicago and we will not allow children in the city of Chicago to have their youthfulness, their optimism, their hope taken from them… that’s what gun violence does.”

While the police in Chicago claim to have had significant success in curtailing shootings in the city by sending dozens of officers into areas known for high gun crime, the city now has a worse homicide rate than New York and Los Angeles.

The four victims in the latest shootings were killed in separate incidents from around sundown on Friday through 3 am on Saturday morning. The men who were killed in the Chicago shootings ranged from 18-37 in age while on Friday afternoon a teenage boy was found shot in the Park Manor neighborhood.

On Thursday at the Cornell Square Park a three year old boy, Deonta Howard, was critically injured when a stray bullet fired by a gang member entered the car he was in. The boy’s grandmother, Semecha Nunn, spoke about the incident to reporters, “I know my grandson wasn’t the target, he just was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.

Nunn, aged 39, has been affected by gun crime a lot recently. Last month her eldest son was shot and killed. and her fiance was wounded by a stray bullet while walking in the park.

Nunn said: “I just buried my oldest son, and then to come home to this, yeah, it’s scary. I don’t feel safe. It’s just sad. I know my grandson wasn’t the target, he just was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.

She appealed to the shooters of her grandson to come forward: “if you have any type of sympathy or a heart, you’ll turn yourself in.”

It is not clear yet what course of action the Chicago Police Department will take to put a stop to the rash of Chicago shootings that took place in the last week. It is hoped that something will be done and that it will be done fast, before more innocent people lose their lives.