Chicago Violence Escalates on Fourth of July Weekend, Leading to High Death Toll
One of Chicago’s bloodiest holiday weekends in memory ended with 17 people fatally shot, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, and 70 more wounded, despite a concerted effort to quell the violence with an additional 1,200 police officers on the streets.
The violence was far worse than last year, when the long Fourth of July weekend ended with six people dead and 66 wounded in gunfire. And the holiday weekend of violence follows Chicago’s deadliest Memorial Day weekend since 2015.
After a relatively peaceful Friday, gunfire erupted Saturday evening.
Seven-year-old Natalia Wallace was standing on the sidewalk outside her grandmother’s house on the city’s West Side during a Fourth of July party around 7 p.m. when, according to police, suspects climbed from a car and opened fire.
The child was shot in the head.
This is 7-year-old Natalia Wallace
Sweet, shy, loving, good at math, family tells me
She was shot and killed in Chicago on the Fourth of July yesterday. @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/rhvnWnJa1x
— Marissa Parra (@MarParNews) July 5, 2020
“Bullets just came from nowhere,” Natalia’s grandmother, Linda Rogers, told the Chicago Tribune on Sunday. “I came out here and my grandbaby [was] lying on the ground.”
Seven-year-old Natalia Wallace, fatally shot in Chicago on Saturday, was described as “very quiet and sweet.” At the end of each e-learning session, she would type “I love you” in the chat box, her teacher at Crown Community Academy of Fine Arts said. https://t.co/LRArDYhK4O
— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 5, 2020
A Chicago police spokeswoman said a man is in custody in that shooting and charges are pending, but she provided no details.
The department did not immediately know how many, if any, arrests have been made in the other weekend homicides.
This year, the department counted July 4 weekend shootings from 6 p.m. Thursday through the end of Sunday.
In all, 13 children under the age of 18 were shot, including the two who died.
This boy, 14-year old Varnado Jones, was killed in a mass shooting in Englewood. Neighbors will have a peaceful protest, are asking the offenders to turn themselves in. Chicago is in mourning. @fox32news pic.twitter.com/DnCXMEvyDL
— Joanie Lum FOX 32 (@JoanieLum) July 6, 2020
The weekend violence highlighted what has been a particularly dangerous year for children in the city. Police statistics show there have been 32 homicide victims under the age of 18 so far in 2020 compared with 20 during the same period in 2019.
A week earlier, Chicago’s shooting victims included a 1-year-old boy riding in a car with his mother and a 10-year-old girl who was shot by a bullet fired a block away that pierced a window and struck her in the head as she sat on a couch at home.
Chicago has counted a total of 1,782 shooting victims this year, 550 more than during the same period last year.
The weekend brought the number of homicides for the year to 353, which is 99 more than were recorded for the same period last year.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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