48 Dead Since Monday

As Chicago weather warms, 48 people shot in nation's third-largest city since Monday

Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY 
(Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)

CHICAGO – At least 48 people have been shot in the nation’s third-largest city since Monday, a troubling uptick of violence for a city that has seen some recent success in reducing shooting incidents.

The surge in violence, which includes four people who have been fatally shot, comes as Chicago Police Department officials have expressed optimism in recent months that gun violence was on the downward trend in a city that tallied more than 1,400 homicides in 2016 and 2017 combined.


Chicago recorded a 22.3% reduction in murders and a 26.5% decline in shooting incidents for the first four months of 2018 compared with the same period in 2017, according to police department data. April also marked the 14th consecutive month in which Chicago recorded a decline in gun violence, according to police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

But as the weather warmed here this week — Chicago endured the fourth-coldest April on record this year but saw temperatures warm this week — the city has seen a spasm of violence.

Police and federal authorities on Friday were hunting for an assailant or assailants who critically wounded an ATF agent in an early morning incident on the city's Southwest Side. Police said the agent, who was shot in the face but is expected to survive, was part of a newly-created strike force – a partnership between federal and local law enforcement – aimed at stemming gun violence in the city.

In an incident Thursday afternoon, officers found a 42-year-old man on a South Side street with a gunshot wound to the buttocks and a graze wound to the head. The man was found after he had been thrown from a vehicle and the driver sped away, according to police. The victim was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Police officials said several of the incidents, including a drive-by shooting late Wednesday in which a 21-year-old woman was killed and four others were wounded, appear to be gang-related incidents.

At least a few of the victims were children, including a girl, 4, who was shot in the shoulder Tuesday evening as she was with her parents on the porch of their home on the city’s South Side. Police say someone in a dark-colored sedan pulled up near the house before opening fire.

In a separate incident Wednesday evening, a 41-year-old man was struck in his thigh and leg as he lay in bed in his apartment on the city’s West Side. Police said the bullet was fired by somebody in an adjacent apartment. That suspect fled before police arrived at the scene.

Another victim, a 15-year-old boy, was struck in the head by a bullet Wednesday afternoon on his way home from school on a city bus on the city’s Southwest Side. The boy, who is listed in good condition, traveled several miles from his home to attend one of the city’s most academically selective high schools.

"It infuriates me that we have a good kid doing what we all expect him to do, and he's a victim of something like this," Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters. "This is why we have to have common sense gun legislation in this country. Not just this city, this state, but in this country, to stop things like this from happening."

Police say they don’t believe the teen was targeted but was struck by an errant bullet.

Despite the uptick in violence this week, city officials say they are having better luck fighting gun violence as a result of investing millions in improved technology since late 2016.

Chicago has partnered with the University of Chicago Crime Lab to build data-driven support centers built in 11 of the city’s districts — an area that covers about 100 square miles — that use hyper local video, shot spotter and other data to help better deploy officers in the city and more quickly respond to violent crime.