Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
NINETEEN PEOPLE WERE shot and wounded in an outbreak of violence in Chicago overnight.
According to the Associated Press 13 people including young teenagers were injured in one 30 minute spate of shooting, with eight gunned down on a single street.
The seven men and one woman ranged in age from 14 to 20 years and were injured in a drive-by shooting on the south side of the city.
Five people were wounded in three other shootings around the same time, while police have confirmed that a total of 19 people were shot in Chicago between yesterday evening and early this morning.
According to the Chicago Tribune the eight people were shot at 79th street and Essex Avenue at around 9.30pm, and the violence is likely to have stemmed from a row between rival gangs.
Two other men were shot in the Brighton Park neighbourhood around the same time, and around a quarter of an hour later another man was shot at South Jeffery Boulevard.
Earlier yesterday evening four men were wounded in a shooting in the neighbourhood of Little Village.
A seventeen-year-old boy was shot around midnight in Englewood, while another teenager – also aged 17 – was shot at Homan Square.
- Additional reporting by AP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Not a good news day for the Americans
On a average weekend in Chicago u could find up to 50 people getting shot. Nothing new here, it just happens in the hood so no one cares.
How many mass shootings has there been in America this summer? It seems to happen daily now. Will Obama or Romney do or say anything about this sorry state of affairs? Of course not. The slaughter of the innocents will continue unabated because no politician will have the courage to take a stand against this madness
not in an election year anyway.
Romney’s a republican and they are pro guns, so no, if elected he’d probably make guns easier to get. The republicans refuse to admit or possibly even see a pattern between their gun laws and their gun related deaths. Republicans fear that if reelected, Obama will be more radical. This makes sense, because without having to worry about another election it frees him up to make his mark on history.
Lads, I think we could be fairly sure that better gun laws would do nothing for cases like this…
In fairness George Bush brought in more gun control legislation than Obama has.
The outright banning of guns would surely help.
Not sure it would Declan. Drive-by shootings and gang wars aren’t hugely affected by *any* laws. That’s why, despite some of the strictest – even draconian – firearms laws in Ireland, we still have drug gangs shooting each other with submachine guns on the M50, trying to blow each other up with pipe bombs and so on.
@ Mark,
Chicago has roughly half the population of Ireland and at least 5 times the murder rate. I think a comparison of the two backs up my point. Granted, there’s a violent gang culture in the US that won’t change but if guns were made harder to get, IMO it would surely help. Also, if anyone caught with possession of a gun were charged with something like intent to commit murder, I’d imagine it’d make anybody think twice about picking one up.
It’s a bad comparison Declan. Chicago has 2.7 million people in 600 square km of densely packed urban environment; Ireland has 4.5 million in 81,600 square km in a mix of urban and rural environments. So when they say that they have a gang problem and we say we have a gang problem, we are talking about *massively* different scales. We’re not even in the ha’penny place compared to them when it comes to this sort of thing. And that’s without even getting into the history and culture of the place compared to ours.
Simple fact is, it wouldn’t matter if they banned all legal possession of firearms in the US tonight; they’d have exactly the same problem with gang violence in chicago tomorrow, and this time next month, and this time next year and this time next decade. If *Irish* gangs can smuggle in large numbers of firearms to Ireland that are illegal throughout the EU, what hope would the US have of stopping their problem with a mere law written down on paper that those gangs never bothered to read in the first place?
There’s a major lack of understanding here that what these people have done is *already illegal*. You don’t need more laws to stop something that is *already* illegal; you need more enforcement of the existing laws.
I live in Chicago, not a fun place ,
That’s why I go to Ireland twice a year..I feel so safe there ‘
And yet another shooting at the Empire State a few mins ago, jaysus H. !
Not ordinary, Not decent, Criminal Criminals made celebs by media and entertainment industries does not help.
a shooting in america is like saying theres sand on the beach.. they are shootings everyday in there will b another 2nyte , 2morro, next week and next month ..
i blame the parents.
The parents hardly shot them!! Then again maybe…
“It’s all in the game”
Obamas ganster hometown
Unless the problems of gams are resolved nothing will change in America or elsewhere
Sorry I meant gangs
A lot of Irish teens in Chicago this year on J1s. Lets hope this incident was a once off.
Lots o’Irish where I live….South Side Irish. !!!
#4
have your say