Send in the Feds: "Six shot during vigil for gunshot victim in Chicago"

Reuters
26 January 2017 - 3:11 AM EST

A 12-year-old girl was among six people shot on Wednesday evening during a vigil in Chicago for a gunshot victim, local media said, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened federal intervention to tackle gun violence in the city.

The shooting occurred at a restaurant in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, where people were gathered to mourn the death of Jamayah Fields, 20, who was shot and killed on Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported.

A gang found out about the memorial event on social media and targeted someone who was attending, community activist Jedidiah Brown told the newspaper.

The six people shot were all being treated at local hospitals, a Chicago Police Department spokesman said.

A 16-year-old boy shot in the neck was in serious condition. The other five were stable, including the 12-year-old girl who suffered a graze wound to her head.

No one was in custody for the shooting, the spokesman said.

Chicago, with a population of 2.7 million, registered more shootings and homicides last year than any other U.S. city, according to FBI and Chicago police data, and its murder clearance rate - a measure of solved and closed cases - is one of the country's lowest.

Trump said on Tuesday he would "send in the Feds" to quell the "carnage" of gun violence in the city if local officials failed to curb the murder rate on their own.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; editing by John Stonestreet)

[END REPORT]

Shootings, homicides in Chicago both higher than start of violent 2016
By Megan Crepaeu
January 23, 2017
Chicago Tribune

Shooting and homicides in Chicago are higher than this time last January, a month that marked the deadliest start to a year in the city in nearly two decades.

As of early Monday, at least 228 people had been shot in Chicago so far this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the 216 shot in the same period time last year. There have been at least 42 homicides, up 23.5 percent from the 34 homicides from the same period in 2016.

Last January closed with 50 homicides, the most for that month in the city in at least 16 years, according to police statistics. The year ended with 783 homicides, the most since 1996, according to data collected by the Tribune.

This January has seen several violent weekends. Over the New Year's weekend, 55 people were shot, five of them fatally. The next weekend saw a sharp drop, two killed and seven wounded. Over the following Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, 39 people were shot, 10 of them fatally.

This past weekend 54 people were shot, six of them fatally. There were seven attacks that wounded three or more people, according to police.

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