Chicago Weekend Shootings Leave at Least 5 Dead, 77 Wounded: Reports

Police tape is seen in this stock photo. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)

Shootings in Chicago over the weekend left at least five people dead and 77 wounded, according to police statistics and media reports.

At least seven of the surviving victims were 17 or younger.

The weekend violence included a mass shooting, with 11 people shot on June 27, leaving one dead and at least two in serious condition, according to Chicago Police Department statistics. The Chicago Fire Department said first responders were called to respond to the scene of the mass shooting at 63rd Street and Artesian Avenue in Chicago Lawn.

Chicago police later said the victims were gathered outside when three unknown male suspects emerged from an alley and fired shots into the crowd; none of the suspects are in custody as detectives continue to investigate.

A separate mass shooting on June 27 on 71st Street near Clyde Avenue left one woman dead and five others wounded, according to CBS Chicago.

Meanwhile, a report last week from the Chicago Police Department (pdf) noted 1,402 shooting incidents in the Windy City so far this year through June 20, compared to 1,224 by the same time in 2020—a 15 percent increase. The number of shootings between June 14 and June 20 rose 16 percent from the comparable week last year, the data shows.

The report also noted that homicides in Chicago have increased by 4 percent, with 307 so far in 2021, compared to 296 by the same period last year.

Overall crime complaints in Chicago, however, are down 7 percent so far in 2021 compared to last year, with a 40 percent drop in burglaries and a 7 percent drop each in robberies and incidents of aggravated battery.

In general, violent and property crime across the United States has fallen significantly since the early 1990s, when crime spiked across much of the nation, according to statistics published by the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Department of Justice.

The violent crime rate fell 49 percent between 1993 and 2019, according to FBI statistics, with large drops in the rates of robbery (68 percent), murder/non-negligent manslaughter (47 percent), and aggravated assault (43 percent). The same source found that the property crime rate fell 55 percent, with significant drops in the rates of burglary (69 percent), motor vehicle theft (64 percent), and larceny/theft (49 percent).