Shootings spike in Chicago
Stats: Most killings in first 3 months of year since 2017
Deadliest year in city in four years as gun violence soars even before warmer months.
“I would love to get rid of all the guns tomorrow. That’s not going to happen. We have to give them a reason to put down the guns.”
— Arne Duncan, who oversees a community organization that assists people most at risk of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence
With a quarter of 2021 already over, it has so far been the deadliest year in Chicago in four years as the city saw another spike in gun violence even before the warmer-weather months arrived.
The spike follows an especially deadly 2020 that saw more than 760 people slain — among the worst years for violence in Chicago in two decades — as neighborhoods struggled through school closures, unemployment and other exacerbated societal ills arising largely from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city recorded 131 slayings during the first three months of 2021, the most since 2017 when at least 140 people were killed in the first quarter of that year, Chicago police statistics show. The 131 killings so far in 2021 is a jump of about 34% over the same period last year, when there were 98, according to the statistics.
The number of total shooting victims, including those killed by gunfire, also continued to rise, with 706 through March 2021, a 43% increase over the year-earlier period, when there were 493 people shot, the statistics show. This year’s shooting tally is also the highest in Chicago since 709 were shot through March 2017, the statistics show.
These tallies do not include violence that may have occurred on state property, such as expressways, but within the city limits. Nor do they include violence committed in self-defense.
“We are continually working to ensure the city’s communities are receiving the support and resources they need as we work to bolster safety across the city, especially in the most vulnerable neighborhoods,” the Police Department said in a statement released by a spokesman. “This will build on enhanced community engagement, like the Neighborhood Policing Initiative (NPI), within our Districts. Programs like NPI provide officers with resources to build trust within the communities they serve by directly interacting with residents to solve persistent quality-of-life problems. We will also be working with outreach and violence prevention organizations throughout Chicago as part of this effort.”
The violent year in Chicago so far has been marked by such high-profile attacks as a random shooting spree on Jan. 9. The man identified by police as the
gunman, 32-year-old Jason Nightengale, shot seven people, killing five, in a spree that stretched from the South Side to north of the city’s border into Evanston. Nightengale was eventually shot and killed by Evanston police.
More recently, 15 people were shot, two of them fatally, at a pop-up party on Chicago’s South Side on March 14. It was the second year in a row the city experienced a mass shooting of that severity.
At least one of the survivors in the March 14 shooting was a man who was being helped by a community organization that assists people most at risk of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence, according to Arne Duncan, who oversees one of the outreach groups.
These groups send workers — who themselves are ex-gang members who still have influence in the streets — to more than a dozen neighborhoods throughout Chicago to mediate conflicts and link those deemed most at risk with various social programs that provide job training, mental health treatment and other services.
Duncan told the Tribune on Thursday these groups must work to reach out to as many potential victims or shooters as possible in order to realize a long-term goal of a 20% reduction in violence.
“We’re doubling down. We’re adding workers. We’re identifying hot spots for the summer,” said Duncan, a former education secretary under President Barack Obama. “I would love to get rid of all the guns tomorrow. That’s not going to happen. We have to give them a reason to put down the guns.”
Over the last few years, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has dedicated $36 million to support these groups.
“We are putting as many boots on the ground as we can,” Duncan said. “It’s encouraging. But I just want to emphasize, we’re still
nowhere the scale where we need to be.”
Other big U.S. cities have also continued to struggle with violence spikes into 2021. Through March 21, homicides in New York City rose from 68 in 2020 to 76 this year, a jump of close to 12%, and total shooting victims increased from 177 to 246, a 39% jump, according to New York Police Department crime statistics. Los Angeles recorded 77 homicides compared with 60 at the same point last year, an increase of 28%, police statistics through March 13 show. Total shooting victims in Los Angeles had also risen by 93% through March 13, from 157 to 303, the statistics show.
Pinpointing the exact reasons for violent crime spikes can be complicated, experts say, considering how homicides and shootings tend to ebb and flow over time. There could be intensified gang or personal conflicts, for instance, or disputes over illegal drug sales.
But Chicago’s 2021 violence spike continues after it also skyrocketed throughout 2020 as the city struggled with the COVID19 pandemic and experienced unrest following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota. Experts have said both likely influenced crime totals in Chicago as the economy suffered and community trust in the police was severely eroded.
Some working in law enforcement, however, have blamed the violence spike on a lenient criminal justice system that lets some defendants out of jail on electronic home monitoring, or on lesser bail amounts.
Parts of the South and West sides of Chicago traditionally see the most violence in the city in a given year, areas that for years have struggled with poverty, disinvestment, illegal drug use and other issues.
Two patrol districts on the South Side have seen some especially big spikes in homicides so far in 2021.
The Wentworth District, which covers such neighborhoods as Bronzeville and Washington Park, recorded 12 slayings through Sunday, up from four during the same period in 2020, statistics show. Shootings, attacks in which at least one person was shot either fatally or nonfatally, also rose in that district this year to 29 from 20 last year, the statistics through Sunday show.
In the Calumet District, encompassing Far South Side communities like Roseland and West Pullman, there were 10 homicides over the first three months of 2021, compared with three at the same time last year, the statistics show. Shootings in the district have also more than doubled from 20 to 48.
The number of homicides and shootings on the West Side, though, has not seen any big spikes over the first three months of last year.
For instance, in the Harrison District, often the most violent of the city’s 22 police districts and covering communities like East and West Garfield Park, there were 10 homicides through Sunday, compared with 14 last year and 17 in 2017, the statistics show. Shootings in the district were also down from last year, from 64 to 59.
Aside from the uptick in homicides and shootings, Chicago has also experienced a huge spike in carjackings so far this year, again continuing a trend from 2020. There were more than 370 carjackings in the city through mid-March, easily the most seen here during the same period in any year since at least 2001, statistics show.
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown has said a large portion of suspects arrested in carjackings are juveniles, those younger than 18. At a news conference last month, Brown called the carjacking spike a “national phenomenon,” saying reasons for it in Chicago could include that more juveniles have been on the street with time on their hands because of schools closed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the city looks toward the spring and usually more violent summer months, the Chicago police spokesman said in the statement that police are preparing through “data-driven prevention and enforcement.”
“This includes deploying resources to areas experiencing unacceptable levels of violence, working alongside other City agencies as part of our crimefighting strategy and conducting multiple tabletop exercises as part of this citywide coordination,” according to the statement.