Gakirah Barnes, 17, was shot multiple times in the upper body Friday afternoon in the city's Woodlawn neighborhood. She died about two hours later at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in what was the first of four gunshot fatalities citywide over the weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Barnes' mother, Shontell Brown, told the Chicago Tribune her daughter is the latest victim of "an ongoing war" playing out on Chicago's streets.
“This is something that has become all too normal to everybody, and it needs to stop," she told the paper.
Later Friday, 34-year-old Shannon Mack was fatally shot inside a car in South Shore, DNAinfo Chicago reports. Mack was pronounced dead at the scene.
DNAinfo reports 32-year-old Corey Brownlee and 20-year-old Joshua Martinez were fatally shot in separate incidents on the city's south and southwest sides early Sunday.
In another shooting, 24-year-old mother of two Jasmine Martinez was shot in the head and chest while driving in Humboldt Park early Sunday. Martinez was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, where she remained hospitalized Monday, ABC Chicago reports.
The Tribune notes a total of at least 36 people were shot in as many hours over the weekend -- between late Friday and early Sunday -- while temperatures in the city soared to 80 degrees, the warmest weather the city has seen since last October.
While he did not comment on whether the summer-like temperatures were a factor in the high weekend violence, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said in a statement distributed to media outlets that "no one will rest until everyone in Chicago enjoys the same sense of safety," NBC Chicago reports.
"While Chicago continues to see reductions in crime and violence, there's obviously much more work to be done and we continue to be challenged by lax state and federal gun laws," McCarthy said.
The weekend's surge of violence in Chicago follows another bloody weekend during which 27 people were shot, including a 16-year-old high school sophomore who was killed.
Chicago police posted the lowest homicide total for the first quarter of the year since 1958 earlier this month, but the number of shooting incidents in the city has been steadily rising in recent weeks.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: The Huffington Post | by Joseph Erbentraut
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