CHICAGO – Four people are dead and four others are injured after an argument broke out and gunshots were fired at a home on Chicago’s South Side early Tuesday morning, according to police.
The shooting happened just before 6 a.m. in the Englewood neighborhood, police said. Detectives were investigating what led to the shooting. So far, no one has been taken into custody.
No juveniles were killed, but an uninjured 2-year-old girl was taken to the hospital “out of an abundance of caution,” police said.
A 23-year-old man and a woman, her age unclear, were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said. A 25-year-old man and a 41-year-old man were taken to Christ Hospital in unknown condition, police said.
“We must acknowledge this for what it is – a tragedy that has ripped apart families and inflicted intense trauma on several individuals,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a press conference. “It tells us that we still have much work to do to end gun violence here in Chicago and, in particular, to limit the access of individuals to illegal guns.”
Lightfoot said the Biden administration reached out to the city Tuesday in the wake of the shooting.
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The incident comes on the heels of another mass shootingin the areathat left one woman dead and nine others injured early Saturday. The 10 victims were standing on the sidewalk in the city’s Chatham neighborhood when two men approached and opened fire around 2 a.m., police said.
Gun violence rose in Chicago – and nationwide – last year amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s on the rise again this year.
More than 1,600 people have been shot in Chicago so far in 2021 – a 19% increase from the same time period last year, according to city data. More than 260 people have died from gunshot wounds. Compared to two years ago, the number of shootings is up 56%, according to police data.
Gun violence in Chicago disproportionately affects people living in low-income neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides, where grocery stores and pharmacies are in short supply. More than 80% of the shooting victims this year are Black, according to city data.
“What we’re seeing here in Chicago is not unique to Chicago. We’re seeing this surge in gun violence all across the country,” Lightfoot said. “The reality is, this is a national problem, and it needs a national solution.”
Nationwide, there have been more than 274 mass shootings – defined as four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter – so far in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that monitors media and police reports.
Austin, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia, also saw mass shootings over the weekend. Lightfoot said she has been in touch with the mayor of Austin.
“We are part of a club of cities to which no one wants to belong – cities with mass shootings,” she said.
Last summer, in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood, 15 people were shot at a funeral in what was the city’s largest shooting in recent memory.
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