Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted out a hopeful message following the shooting death of a 7-year-old girl in the city’s Austin neighborhood.
“Tonight, a 7-year-old girl in Austin joined a list of teenagers and children whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote on Twitter. “We cannot grow numb to this. We are making progress in slowing shootings, but we have to do better, every single one of us.”
Progress, madam? I got your “progress” right here.
Thirteen people have been killed and 54 others wounded in shootings across Chicago so far over the Fourth of July weekend.
Nine of the weekend’s victims were minors, and two of the children died from their injuries.
If 67 people were hit by bullets, how many shots were actually fired? The gunfire on Chicago’s streets must sound to those who served like they were back in Baghdad or Mogadishu.
The girl, identified by her family as Natalie Wallace, was outside her grandmother’s home at a Fourth of July party in the city’s Austin neighborhood around 7 p.m. when a vehicle pulled up and three men got out and started shooting indiscriminately, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The girl was shot in her head and pronounced dead after she was rushed to a hospital, police said, according to Chicago’s FOX 32.
A 32-year-old man shot during the same attack was in fair condition, FOX 32 reported.
I can remember when 8 people getting shot in the same incident made national headlines. But two separate incidents of mass casualties in one weekend? it’s just another night in Chicago.
A 14-year-old boy was among four people killed in a shooting that wounded four others Saturday night in Englewood on the South Side.
They were at a large gathering in the street about 11:35 p.m. in the 6100 block of South Carpenter Street when four males walked up and started shooting, according to Chicago police. The 14-year-old boy was hit in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children’s Hospital.
Three other male victims were pronounced dead, two at the scene and one at the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said. Their ages were not immediately known.
This wasn’t a drive-by shooting. It was a walk-up crime. No need to hurry up and get away. No cops to worry about.
You want to grab Lori Lightfoot by the shoulders and shake her until it registers: “Your city is bleeding to death and you’ve got to do something!”
Would it hurt some of your supporters’ feelings if you brought in the National Guard? Probably. And residents certainly won’t like it very much. Activists will scream bloody murder. Newspapers and media commentary will string you up and you will be hung in effigy.
But your city will be safer. And maybe it will save the lives of a few children.
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