It’s a good thing that Chicago has a serious plan to deal with their sky-high murder rate.
Via CBS-Chicago:
Vernadette Taylor moved to West Englewood’s 6700 block of South Winchester more than 30 years ago with her husband, son and daughter.
In the last year and a half, three shootings on her block have left one man dead and 10 others hurt.
The 28-year-old man killed on her block Monday night helped push Chicago past a miserable milestone as he was one of more than 600 homicides the city has seen so far this year — a 24 percent uptick compared to the same time last year, not to mention about 100 killings more than the homicide totals in New York and Los Angeles combined this year.
Nonfatal shootings also are way up citywide. As of last week, more than 2,100 people had been wounded this year and survived, compared with about 1,400 people shot in the same time period in 2015, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
“It wasn’t always like this,” Taylor said Tuesday. “Within the last two or three years it’s gotten to be almost like you’re in the middle of a war zone.”
Taylor had just parked her car in her garage Monday night when gunfire erupted outside.
A man was killed and a 13-year-old boy was one of four wounded in a shooting about 8:50 p.m., police said.
Police said the five were standing in a front yard when another group walked up and opened fire before running off.
Timothy Agnew, 28, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene at 9:18 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 8100 block of South Maryland.
Sources said the shooting involved rival factions of the Gangster Disciples and New Breeds, both of which claim territory in the 6700 block of South Winchester.
Taylor couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from. “There were too many to count,” she said.
Monday’s shooting was just part of a bloody night on the South Side.
About two hours later, Ronald McBee, 24, was shot to death in the 7300 block of South Morgan, authorities said.
McBee was the 600th homicide recorded in Chicago in 2016, and another killing Tuesday morning in West Pullman brought the homicide count to 601, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of data kept by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.