Eleven people were killed and 45 wounded in shootings between Friday afternoon and Monday morning in Chicago, including a 10-year-old and a man leading an anti-violence nonprofit, Chicago Tribune reported.
Ten-year-old Gustavo Garcia was in a car with his stepfather and another man on Friday night, when another car pulled up beside it and opened fire.
The stepfather tried to speed away and after several blocks found a police officer at the scene of a fatal motorcycle accident. The boy was pronounced dead shortly upon arrival at Comers Children’s Hospital.
William Cooper, 58, was the principal officer of the Lilydale Outreach Workers for a Better Community on Chicago’s South Side, a nonprofit helping Chicago youth to find jobs. He was killed on Saturday afternoon in a drive by shooting, The Associated Press reported.
He left behind a wife, three children, and a many more people who depended on him for help.
“People are so cold-hearted. How could you take somebody’s life? He helped everybody. I just don’t understand,” Cooper’s niece, Patricia Carter, told WLS-TV.
According to AP, detectives are trying to discern whether he was targeted or a victim of a random shooting.
Chicago has the most murders in the country, having taken 787 victims last year, according to Chicago Tribune’s count. The violence, however, is mainly concentrated in the western and southern neighborhoods where gang violence is rampant.
Almost 2,000 have been shot this year in the city and 375 have been killed, the Tribune’s tallies show. Statistically, compared to last year, 2017 is shaping up to be slightly less violent.
