As Chicago weather warms, 84 people shot in nation's third-largest city in week

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

CHICAGO — At least 84 people were shot in the nation’s third-largest city over the last seven days, a troubling uptick of violence for a metropolis that has seen some recent success in reducing shooting incidents.

The surge in violence, which includes nine people who were 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 data.

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

At least 41 people were shot between Friday and Sunday, according to police.

Police and federal authorities on Sunday continued the hunt for an assailant or assailants who critically wounded an ATF agent a day earlier 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.

Police officials said several of the incidents, including a drive-by shooting late Friday in which a 41-year-old man and 17-year-old boy were wounded, appear to be gang-related. In two separate shootings Saturday afternoon on the West Side, a 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old man who police said are documented gang members were shot. The 25-year-old who was shot multiple times as he rode a bike was rushed to a nearby hospital and listed in critical condition, police said.

In the latest homicide, a 35-year-old man was mortally wounded late Sunday near his right armpit. Police did not detail the circumstances of the man's death, but according to police records, he was shot in the same area that has seen five shooting incidents in the last week.

Early Sunday morning, two men, ages 22 and 24, were wounded as they walked out of a building on the same block where the 12-year-old boy was shot hours earlier. Those two incidents happened about two blocks away from the site of the homicide.

At least a few of the wounded were children.

Around 9:20 p.m. Saturday, a 12-year-old boy was critically injured after he was shot in the stomach. Police said the boy was wounded by a gunman who fired into a crowd on a sidewalk on the city's West Side. Police were searching for the assailant, who was arguing with a woman before allegedly firing the weapon.

In another incident involving a child, 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.

Some of the victims appeared to simply have terrible luck. In an 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.

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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 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.