Chicago hits 700-homicide mark for just second time in 20 years over weekend
Chicago reached 700 homicides this year during a violent weekend that saw six killed and 46 wounded — the second time the city reached the 700 milestone in two decades.
The 700th homicide was a man killed in a quadruple shooting early Sunday on the Far South Side, according to records kept by the Chicago Sun-Times.
He was standing with a group on a sidewalk in the 700 block of East 101st Street when shots rang out, according to Chicago police.
The man, 28, was shot multiple times at 12:40 a.m. and died three hours later at a hospital, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Two women, both 30 years old, and a 25-year- old man were also shot, police said. They were listed in fair or good condition.
Chicago has seen a 53% increase in shootings and murders this year compared with the same period in 2019, according to police statistics. Violence has risen so much, Chicago has more murders this year than during the same period in 2016 — the city’s most violent year in recent memory.
The jump in violence reverses a yearslong trend of homicide violence citywide. The Sun-Times counted 503 homicides in all of 2019; 550 in 2018; and 664 in 2017. Chicago logged 781 homicides in all of 2016.
In the 1990s, yearly homicide totals over 900 were common, with Chicago reporting more than 930 murders in 1994.
About 93% of homicides in 2020 have been shootings, according to the Sun-Times’ numbers.
Homicide victims are disproportionately Black males, according to medical examiner’s public records. More than 88% of victims in 2020 are men, and 78% of total victims are Black.
The medical examiner’s office, which tracks homicides by the date of death instead of the time of injury, has recorded 721 homicides so far in 2020. That number includes police-involved shootings and other selfdefense shootings that the Sun-Times’ count omits.