“I USED to love the summer,” says Elizabeth Dozier in the CNN documentary “Chicagoland”, which aired last year. “Then, once I became the principal of the school, I just started to hate summer. I have lost kids over the summer. I have had kids hurt and shot over the summer….I can't wait for the fucking summer to be over.” Ms Dozier is the principal of Christian Fenger Academy High School in Roseland, a troubled neighbourhood on the South Side of Chicago, where violence flares up as soon as temperatures rise. The mayhem gets especially bad on public holidays, and this year was no exception. Mayor Rahm Emanuel made sure more police officers were on the streets over the long July 4th weekend, but ten people still died and at least 55 were wounded in shootings between the evening of July 2nd and the early morning of July 6th. Among the dead was Amari Brown, a sweet-faced seven-year-old African-American boy, who was gunned down in Humboldt Park on the West Side, and 17-year-old Vonzell Banks, who was shot while playing basketball with his cousin in a park in Bronzeville on the South Side. "I am both saddened and sickened by what happened," said Mr Emanuel yesterday.

By switching police officers from eight-hour to 12-hour shifts over the weekend, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) had increased police presence by 30%. The CPD seized one illegal gun per hour, on average, during the three days. Both Mr Emanuel and Gary McCarthy, the head of the CPD, blame the “gun lobby” for the lax gun laws that enable these outbreaks of fatal violence. They have repeatedly called on state and federal legislators to restrict gun sales and severely punish those convicted of gun crimes—to little avail.

The carnage this year was grim, but last year was bloodier still, when 16 people died and 80 were shot. Reverend Autry Phillips of the Target Area Development Corporation, a non-profit organisation, suspects his new “7-11” initiative may have helped deter some violence this year. The group recruited around 300 neighbourhood locals—mothers, fathers, cousins, etc—to walk the streets of the troubled 7th and 11th police districts day and night, keeping watch and defusing tensions before they could explode. The 7th district includes Englewood, one of Chicago’s most violent neighbourhoods, where no one was hurt; the 11th has Humboldt Park, where everything was quiet except for the one tragic murder. The scheme was financed by a $400,000 grant from an anonymous foundation. It will continue through the weekends in July, but then the money will run out. The reverend concedes that the programme “may not be the silver bullet to solve all our problems”, but he hopes it will find the funds to continue through the rest of the summer.

Mr Emanuel is similarly hopeful about One Summer Chicago 2015, the city’s summer jobs programme, launched on June 29th. For six weeks 24,000 youngsters aged 14 to 24 will work in urban farming, bike repair and local zoos. A special programme places 2,000 at-risk youth in a 25-hour per week summer job and gives them a mentor, some cognitive-behavioural therapy and coaching in social skills. One Summer Chicago 2015 is the largest summer jobs programme in the city’s history. Even still, more than 60,000 people applied for the 24,000 jobs.