Gun violence in Chicago rivals the danger from the coronavirus outbreak.
So far this year 697 people have been shot in the city of Chicago while a little more than 800 are believed to have died from coronavirus (although many of those people died with coronavirus, they didn't necesarily die from coronavirus).
That means in Chicago the statistical possibility of you being shot by a gun or killed from coronavirus are strikingly close. Chicago basically has two pandemics happening at the same time, but one of those pandemics has been happening for years and nobody seems to care.
While crime overall has ticked down slightly amid shelter-in-place orders from local leaders, shootings and murders have remained fairly consistent so far, with the city registering more shootings in March this year than the previous year.
During the first weekend of April, two were killed and 18 were wounded, mostly on the city’s predominantly black and brown South and West Sides. On Tuesday, as unseasonably warm temperatures in Chicago rose into the 80sF (27C), the city endured its most violent day of 2020, with at least 21 shot – including a five-year-old girl – and six killed.
“Violence of any kind is never acceptable,” the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, said at a news conference this week decrying the violence. “But the fact that this is especially urgent right now as our ability to treat all Chicagoans is being stretched to the breaking point, we cannot allow this to happen and we will not allow this to happen.”
CHICAGO, IL - JULY 17: A small memorial sits outside a liquor store on the city's south side where 58-year-old community activist Willie Cooper was shot and killed on July 17, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. Cooper was one of 10 people fatally shot and more than 40 others wounded during weekend gun violence in Chicago. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)