CHICAGO – Police say four people are dead and four others injured after an argument broke out early Tuesday morning and shots fired at a house on Chicago’s South Side.
The shooting occurred just before 6 a.m. in the Englewood neighborhood, police said. Detectives were investigating what led to the shooting. No one has been taken into custody so far.
Three of the people killed were women and the fourth was a man, Chicago Police Commissioner David Brown said in a news conference on Tuesday. At first it was not clear how old they were.
No juveniles were killed, but an uninjured two-year-old girl was taken to hospital “out of great caution,” police said.
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A 23-year-old man and a woman whose ages are 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 an unknown condition, police said.
“We have to recognize this for what it is – a tragedy that tore families apart and inflicted intense trauma on several people,” said Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a press conference. “It tells us that we still have a lot to do to end gun violence here in Chicago and, in particular, to restrict individuals’ access to illegal weapons.”
Lightfoot said the Biden government reached out to the city on Tuesday after the shooting.
The Resident Association of Greater Englewood, a grassroots organization that aims to connect and strengthen the community, said in a post it “prayed” for the victims.
“Pray for these families, pray for peace on every block of Englewood, and pray for healing in this town,” the group said on twitter.
The incident follows another mass shootingin the areaThe one woman dead and nine others injured early saturday. The ten victims were standing on the sidewalk in the Chatham neighborhood when two men approached and opened fire around 2 a.m., police said.
Gun violence increased in Chicago – and nationwide – at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year and on the rise again this year.
In 2021, more than 1,600 people have been shot dead in Chicago so far – a 19% increase over the same period last year, so City data. More than 260 people died from gunshot wounds. Compared to two years ago, the number of shootings has increased by 56%, so Police records.
Gun violence in Chicago disproportionately affects people living in low-income neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city, where grocery stores and pharmacies are in short supply. More than 80% of the victims of shootings this year are black, according to the city.
“What we see here in Chicago is not unique to Chicago. We are seeing this surge in gun violence across the country,” said Lightfoot. “The reality is that this is a national problem and it needs a national solution.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that monitors media and police reports, there were more than 274 mass shootings nationwide in 2021 – defined as four or more people shot or killed without the shooter.
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Austin, Texas, and Savannah, GeorgiaHe too saw mass shootings at the weekend. Lightfoot said she contacted the Austin mayor.
“We’re part of a club of cities that no one wants to belong to – cities with mass shootings,” she said.
The shooting in Chicago on Tuesday was the 18th mass murder – defined as four or more dead, excluding the perpetrator – this year, according to a USA TODAY / Associated Press / Northeastern University database. Seventeen were shootings.
Last summer in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood, 15 people were shot dead at a funeral at the city’s biggest recent shootout.
