Still on pace for their record shootings.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel/AP Photo
Via MyFoxChicago: Three men were killed and at least 20 other people — including a baby girl — have been wounded in shootings on the South and West sides since Friday afternoon.
Early Sunday, a woman wailed as she looked out of her third-story apartment window at a crime scene on the street below in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the Southwest Side. Officers responding to a call of person shot about 1:25 a.m. found a 32-year-old man lying in the street near the corner of West 13th Street and South Central Park Avenue, according to Chicago Police.
The man had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Family members identified him as Fredrick Lee Blount, who has a 1-year-old daughter, a 12-year-old son and three sisters. “He was a good person, worked every day, wasn’t up to nothing,” said Blount’s father, 54-year-old Fredrick Lee Irons, adding that his family has never before been affected by gun violence. “Sundays he loved to cook. Tomorrow he would’ve been calling me to come over and barbecue with him.”
Officers at the scene covered Blount’s body with a white sheet, which could be seen lying on the ground near the 13th Street stop sign on the west side of Central Park. Residents of a large multi-unit apartment building on the corner looked out their windows while detectives investigated.
Late Friday, a double homicide happened at an Englewood neighborhood party on the South Side.
And with the shooting of a one-year-old girl, apparently the community is all of a sudden outraged – never mind the fact that children have been getting shot in their community for quite some time now.
No where to be seen in Chiraq…
Also from MyFoxChicago: A one-year-old girl was shot in the neck Friday night on the city’s west side. The little girl, Khloe, was with her aunt and cousin riding in the backseat of a car when police say someone in a silver car drove past and fired shots at the family’s car. Khloe was rushed to a local hospital and is expected to be okay.
This shooting caused the community to come out against the violence in Austin as activists and residents joined hands to pray Saturday afternoon. “Unfortunately, if this young lady had lost her life you would have 100,000 people out here, but the thing is black lives have to matter to black folks as well – that’s why we stand here unified today,” said Tio Hardiman with Violence Interrupters and a community activist.
Activist Tio Hardiman
He and others encouraged those that attended the peace march Saturday to get involved. “We are not going to leave here until we talk to these brothers in the neighborhood and try to get them to put their guns down,” said Hardiman. The message Saturday – get involved in your community and your own family.
“You should call the police on them but at least at minimum you cannot stay in my house,” said Reverend Ira Acree with Greater St. John Bible Church, who believes job opportunity would also help decrease the violence. “You stop a bullet with a job but by the same token, until those jobs come we must be outraged at all the senseless violence.”
“Start with the family and go out abroad because this – when you hurt one child you hurt all of us,” said one neighbor.
DCG