Chicago ends 2016 with 762 homicides, opens 2017 with 2 deaths
Two people have lost their lives in a shooting incident in the US city of Chicago, where 762 people became victims of gun violence in 2016, according to police.
An argument between two men at a bar in Chicago on Sunday, the first day of 2017, ended with the two firing shots at one another, leaving both of them dead, The Chicago Tribune reported.
Meanwhile, Chicago police responding to the double homicide shot another person, who, according to police, physically resisted his arrest. The man was in critical condition on Sunday.
On Saturday, the last day of 2016, a 24-year-old was shot dead in South Austin neighborhood of the city in a possible road rage act that may have been retaliation for hitting another driver’s vehicle.
The Saturday death became the 762nd homicide for the year 2016, a staggering statistic that represents the largest spike in decades, according to data from the Chicago Police Department.
According to data maintained by The Chicago Tribune, at least 781 were killed for the year. The Police Department statistics do not include killings on area expressways, police-involved shootings, and other homicides in which people lose their lives in self-defense or death investigations.
"2016 saw an unacceptable rise in violence, beginning at the outset of the year," said Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.
“In many instances, the individuals who chose to pull the trigger are repeat gun offenders emboldened by the national climate against law enforcement and willing to test the limits of our criminal justice system,” Johnson said. “These emboldened criminals are responsible for destroying families and communities as well as dozens of attacks on Chicago police officers in 2016.”
On Saturday, hundreds of people joined a silent march in Chicago to highlight the uptick in gun violence in the country’s third most populous city.
Demonstrators marched along the city’s major lakefront Michigan Avenue while carrying crosses representing each of those killed in violent crimes mostly by the use of guns, local press reports said.
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