11 killed, 46 wounded in another grim Chicago weekend
CHICAGO — Shootings over the weekend killed at least 11 people and wounded 46 as another ugly spasm of gun violence beset the nation's third-largest city.
Among the 57 shooting victims recorded between Friday and Monday morning were a 10-year-old boy and a 58-year-old community activist, according to police reports.
The activist, William Cooper, was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday afternoon near his office at Lilydale Outreach Workers for a Better Community, which helps connect teens with jobs, police said. Police said Cooper was walking when a dark-colored vehicle approached him and its occupants fired on him.
The child, Gustavo Garcia, was seated in a car late Friday evening when people in another vehicle drove up and opened fire, killing him. A 31-year-old man in the car with Gustavo was critically wounded with gunshot wounds to the back, face and chest, according to police.
Police have not arrested anyone for the shootings of Garcia, Cooper or the nine other victims.
The grim weekend shooting tally comes as Chicago has seen more than 1,100 murders and 6,000 shooting victims since the beginning of 2016.
Police note that shooting incidents, which authorities say are primarily driven by gang disputes and largely isolated to predominantly low-income black and Latino neighborhoods on the city city's South and West sides, are down about 13% this year compared to the same point last year.
But the city is on pace to surpass the 762 murders it tallied last year — the bloodiest for Chicago in nearly two decades. Chicago recorded more murders than New York and Los Angeles combined last year
President Trump has called the scourge of violence in Chicago "horrible carnage" and compared the city to a "war-torn" country. Last month, his administration announced it would dispatching an additional 20 ATF agents to the city to help bolster the investigation and prosecution of shootings.
The killing of 10-year-old Gustavo marks the fourth fatal shooting of a child under the age of 12 in the city in 2017.
Three children were killed days apart in February in a trio of gang-related shooting incidents in which they were not the intended targets.
Lavontay White, 2, was fatally shot along with his 26-year-old uncle Lazarec Collins. A pregnant woman, 20, was also wounded when they were ambushed in the gang-related shooting that was partially captured on Facebook Live.
Days earlier, Takiya Holmes,11, was sitting in her family's parked van in front of a dry cleaners when she was struck in the back of the head by a stray bullet. She succumbed to her injuries days after being wounded.
Less than an hour before Takiya was shot, Kanari Gentry Bowers, 12, was inadvertently struck in the head by gunfire as she played basketball with friends on an elementary school playground. After four days on life support, Kanari died from her injuries.
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