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Rich Hein/Chicago Sun-Times
Janice Watson signs a memorial for Joseph Briggs, a 16-year-old who was killed Saturday, as Joseph's sister Maggie, 17, right, looks on in the Marquette Park neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, Sunday.
A series of shootings in Chicago over the weekend left eight people dead, including a 16-year-old, and more than 40 people wounded, according to NBCChicago.com.
During one particularly bloody stretch overnight Saturday, about 20 people were shot, police said.
"None of it is OK," Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told NBCChicago.com. "And I don't want it to seem like we're managing it, but the realistic expectations have to be over the long-term."
The youngest to die from the weekend gun violence was 16-year-old Joseph Briggs, shot on his front porch in Marquette Park, police said, adding that the shooting may have been gang-related.
The teen’s grandmother, who was raising him and his sisters, told the Chicago Sun-Times she did not believe Briggs was the intended target, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Courtesy Chicago Sun-Times
Joseph Briggs, 16, was killed Saturday night on his front porch in Marquette Park, Chicago.
She said her grandson’s murder has caused her to think about relocating.
“There’s been a lot of shootings on this block,” Josephine Briggs said to the Sun-Times. “Once I bury him, I’m going to try and move."
McCarthy said guns and gang activity remain a huge issue for the city but he maintains overall crime in Chicago is down 10 percent.
"Crime reduction is a process," McCarthy said. "We implement the strategies and the question is are we doing better than we were last year. And the answer is yes."
After a bad first quarter that saw a 60 percent spike in murders over the previous year, McCarthy said, shootings are down eight percent in the second quarter and gun recovery is up 20 percent.
He pointed out that this time last year 17 people were murdered in a week.
"It's not something we want to declare victory about, but it's progress," McCarthy said. "You have to have that perspective and it's the reality."
The first shootings of the weekend happened around 4:43 p.m. on Friday near the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the southwest side of the city, where two men were killed and three others were wounded.
Rashuan Stephany, 22, and Mario Jackson, 26, were standing outside with three others when two unknown men approached them on foot and fired shots, Chicago police spokesman Daniel O’Brien told the Sun-Times.
Stephany and Jackson were pronounced dead a short while later at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
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Leave a Comment:
I'm sure Nudge and the other whacko gun lovers. Are honoring the dead who have paid the price for the freedumb to buy and sell gunz at will. Freedumb is not free and many are dying, even if they are not the target.
Gaad bless duh nra and guns profiteers
They're killing each other in Africa as well. So you want to blame the NRA as well?
yep, you guys go ahead and live in your gun controlled Chicago where unarmed law abiding citizens are slaughtered, I will go ahead and live here where law abiding folks can own and carry guns and we don't get shot on the front porch of our homes. Yeah gun control is so nice, no criminals in Chicago carry guns anymore because it is illegal for them to.
"Freedumb"? Yuck!
Hey Grampa, are you that stupid? These people doing the killings aren;t NRA members or even members contributing to society, except burdening it. Guns don;t kill people, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE !
Let me add that these people are overflowing with self esteem.
We used to tell ourselves that lack of self esteem was the problem.
Ever gone to an "inner city" school? Elementary through High School, these kids are strutting, confronting adults, and all with chin held high.
Massive ignorance at a level that most within this forum could never understand or believe, massive self esteem that is rare even among celebrities, and an entitlement mentality that would make Paris Hilton blush... THAT is the problem.
It ain't the blue eye'd devil and it ain't Zimmerman.
hey obama!!!......maybe you should resign the presidency and bring your awesome community organizing skills to chicago........chicago needs your help!!!.....obama is the worst president in american history...
Oh cut the Obama crap! This mess has nothing to do with him!
You want change in Chicago? Give Illinoisans the right that the rest of the country has, The right to bear arms, and you will see a turnaround when these thugs realize that the victims they are shooting at, can shoot back! As it stands now, Illinois is the only state that doesn't allow the citizens to defend themselves. And look what's happening! Come on illinois, speak up, and be heard! Fight for your gun rights.
Clearly this has everything to do with Obama. Violent crime doesn't happen anywhere else, especially in deep red states like Alabama or Georgia. No drug-related gang violence problems there either. I have an easy solution to this problem, stop criminalizing drugs and treat them as a health issue. Offer addicts a choice to get cheap, safe, clean drugs from government controlled centers with the only condition being that they must start working with the center and rehab. Criminalizing does NOT WORK.
Lock up ALL druggies and eliminate MOST crime.
Lol. Not the case. Even if you were correct in this statement; who would pay for it? We are already broke.
The money saved from welfare would more than cover the costs.
The gun control is there to keep the streets safe for criminals. It IS Chicago...
Wouldnt want an innocent person firing back now would we?
This isn't a gun control issue. Gun laws are for law-abiding citizens which clearly these people are not.
didn't we just read about 40 people shot in Chicago on another weekend? Dang, that place is getting out of control. I know someone will point out to me, "hey, it's a city of 3 million, look at it from a percentage point of view" and to that I'd say.....great, the percentage is nice and low. Really neat, unless you're part of the percent that got shot this weekend. Something needs to change.
Yeah. We should try to build support for monthly Free Ammo Weekends. It would be worth a few bucks of taxpayer money to get the body count up to 100-200/weekend. A couple of years of that should bring the problem under control.
My God, did we not just have a similar story from Chicago a couple of weeks ago were 10 people were killed. With a estimated gang population of 100,000 in the Chicago land area, I am not surprised. A culture that worships violent rap music, pimping, gangs and being "hard" putting in work etc etc, this is the end result. Also given the fact the Illinois will not give its law abiding citizens the right to C&C its easy pickings for thugs.
Well, I wonder what color these people are ? If I had to guess I d say every one of them is black.. I know, it was a good guess....
I guess all Law Abiding White folks weren't committing crimes this weekend. According to some on these boards, Whites NEVER commit crimes..... (EYES ROLLING)
Listen its not that whites don't commit crimes, it's the kind of crimes whites commit and the kind of crimes blacks commit. Whites try to steal $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme, Blacks try to steal Newports and a pair of Nikes and they kill you while trying to steal it. ONLY in THIS country do N!GG$RS exist! NO OTHER PLACE ON EARTH! The black culture is its cool to be lazy. Its cool to bang every nasty fat ape looking piece of trash AND CUM UP IN HER!!! Its cool to get a bunch of tats and wear your $5 pants down to your knees and talk like a retard with that ebonics crap. Its not cool to work 40 hours at a legit job and pay taxes! Its not cool to WEAR A CONDOM or better yet KEEP YOUR DISGUSTING FAT LEGS CLOSED! Its not cool to give your child a REAL NAME instead of just throwing a bunch of letters together with a LA in the front and a DA at the end!
Maybe Chicago needs to outlaw guns. And murder also.
these naive people that talk about gun control are not even using the brains God gave them..What part of getting guns don't they understand? Unless there was a GIANT MAGNET that would suck ALL guns up and take them to the furnaces and melt them ,that can't be. Guns can come across borders both state and national....Blacks must TEACH and MONITOR blacks....Blacks will not respond to anyone of NO COLOR......Don't expect whittie to help you when you won't help yourselves...It all starts in the communities...YOU ALL know who is doing this crap ,but you won't turn them into authorities. YOU are protecting those YOU want to be protected against ......Get YOUR BLACK HEAD OUT OF YOUR BLACK ASS....and help yourself.....ONLY YOU CAN DO IT......GROW SOME BALLS and Turn these THUGS into authorities and break this CHAIN.....Weather you believe it or not These THUGS have put you BLACKS back into modern day SLAVERY.......For the most part YOUR NEW MASTERS ARE ....BLACK....
I think neighborhood watch programs must be illegal in black neighborhoods.
Police should have the right to frisk anyone, stop any vehicle they want, use a metal detector or whatever it takes to get a handle on this. But we wouldn't want to profile anyone would we. Step on anyones rights. Just because it is black on black crime in all black neighborhoods, we wouldn't want to profile anyone & stop a car with several young black people in it with the boob boom Rap playing so loud that the windows are rattling. What happened to that boy's right to being able to safely stand on his own porch without getting killed?
It is mostly a gang banger problem. Kill off the gangs and get rid of the problem. Back in the 1800s the New York City 4 Corners had it bad with gangs. Finally the feds were called in and killed the lot of them. Problem solved.
..... but then again we can not do this these days can we?
As job opportunities decrease, and unemployment rises (which it will), you will see more of the same in the days and weeks to come across every State. Young men with nothing to do. We outsource our jobs to support other Countries now. So, every job you apply for, you are competing not just against your American neighbor, but from people from China and India as well as others.
This should not be the case. We can not pack our bags and compete for jobs in those Countries so why do we allow it here. We do not have enough jobs for skilled and talented American citizens as it is and now we have to provide jobs to India as well. That is total BS!!!!
you're right about the cause. Got a solution?
I know blacks multiply like rabbits , but maybe between aids, prison and bullets we ll soon be rid of them..
One of the most IGNORANT comments I have ever seen on these threads....!
you must be new here :)
The murders in Chicago that everyone is reading and talking about are primarily caused by the gangs that live in the same areas. I have been saying for years that we need to use the RICO statute to go after the same gangs, and now I hear that Illinois is finally looking into doing this.
My fellow conservatives making snarky comments about Chicago's gun laws are really missing the point here.
All this proves is that the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
You can talk about race, or money, or drugs, or whatever, but it all comes down to parenting, one way or another. If you have poor kids in a poor neighborhood raised by involved parents doing the best they can, you probably aren't going to raise gang-bangers.
On the other hand, if parents don't have time for their kids, somebody is still going to raise them. If they are lucky, it will be a loving grandparent, other relative, or maybe, just maybe, a caring foster parent. If not, the street gangs, thugs, low-lifes, and pimps will do it for them. Kids will get their values somewhere. A poor home can still be a loving one that instills positive values. But the street teaches kids street values, and violence is never far behind in that process.
to bring the jobs back IT"S SIMPLE.......Back of on regulation an overbearing rules.taxes and government regulation and the companies come back..a company needs to estimate there costs to provide a service...They open a company and then the government steps in and changes the rules for what ever reason that raises the cost of providing a service and that takes away from the PROFIT sometimes eliminating the profit completely .......Basis Business 101 says you need to make a profit to continue doing business. Foreign governments don't change the rules midgame. The employees don't generally need pay so much less but they go in with fixed numbers and know how the will come out in the end without LOOSING MONEY thats business....JOBS will come back when the U S government SETS the rules and sticks to them and not before.....Our government AKA the President can sway these rules if he is respected. RESPECT NEEDS TO BE EARNED....not just because you got a job doesen't mean that you get respect...IT MUST BE EARNED....NOT BOUGHT
Where is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton when all this stuff is going on. Where is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton when 2 black youths kill a white woman. Where is the outrage in the white community when a black person kills a white person. It isn't a 2 way street. I say it are the black people that are the racists and the bigots they are the one's who are causing the problem's and they are the one's who are doing it to themselve's. They are the only one's who can stop themselve's.
Cadedra Cook, 18, and an unnamed 15-year-old male are charged with stabbing Elizabeth Hutchenson, 27, fifty times when she arrived at Cook’s home in Cedartown, Georgia, The Cedartown Standard reports.
This is a pretty crappy situation, but it has been going on out here (Chicago) for countless years, so what's new in the hood?
I was having a discussion with my black friend regarding Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. He, in my opinion, said it best, "Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will not show their faces unless there is a buck to be made. They are the worst representation a black community could ask for, and they are nothing but opportunist looking to spread hate within the black community, and expand their pockets." Then he jokingly followed up with "don't tell any of my people I said this because I don't want to get shot." Don't get me wrong, he still blames "whitey" for a lot of stuff, but at least we agree on this.
When there is black and black violence there is no hate to spread, no white person to blame for the oppression of black people, and no money to be made, so Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will rarely ever be present.
In the hood those of us who find a way out get an education, get out, and never look back, except to say I'm glad I'm out of there. Without positive roll models in these types of communities chances are the violence will just continue and rage out of control.
Lucky for me I had a Dad and a Mom growing up to give me guidance, keep me in line, and involve me with bettering my community. Many of my friends did not, and many of my friends are not around anymore. On the other hand, I am proud to say many of us have found a way out and worked towards our degrees and are quite successful. Several of my friends are now doctors, lawyers, educators, and more. They no longer live in the hood, but made it out.
There are good people in the hood, with amazing minds, and wants to contribute to society. It is unfortunate they are buried beneath the reputation of violence and death from lesser minded individuals.
This is in Jessie's backyard. This is what being young and black in the city is all about. Try and do something about it and you will be a racest in the eyes of Jessie and Sharpton and through their urging, by the black community at large too.
I wish they would forget Trevor. What caused Trevor's death were the 8 dead and 40 wounded young black men in Chicago last week end, and last month and last year. Where is the outcry of the Black Community over this carnage.
I am shocked that black people are killing black people. I bet you are, too.
Black people acting black. News at 10.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who will point this out, but the point needs made and remade - Chicago has very stiff, even draconian anti-gun laws. If you think they work, move to Chicago and be prepared to duck and run. You'd be safer in Texas, where they pass out concealed carry permits like Halloween candy, but don't let reality influence your thinking on the matter.