USA TODAY International Edition
‘A shortage of values’ and a surge in shootings
CHICAGO – At least 72 people were shot, including 12 fatally, over the weekend in Chicago, another eruption of violence in a city that has struggled with murders and shootings in recent years even as the national homicide rate hovers near historic lows.
Police investigated a 13th murder – the slaying of a 32-year-old woman who was found dead around 9 p.m. Sunday in a bathtub with her hands and feet bound. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office was scheduled to conduct an autopsy Monday to determine how the woman, Shantel Boler, was slain.
“There is a shortage of values about what is right, what is wrong,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “We as a city, in every corner, have an accountability and responsibility. If you know who did this, be a neighbor. Speak up.”
The violence, which police say is primarily fueled by gangs, disproportionately affects several swaths of lowincome black and Latino neighborhoods on the city’s West and South Sides. The latest shootings, stretching over a 60-hour period from Friday evening until early Monday, came after city officials expressed optimism that Chicago had made headway in cutting the persistent gun violence.
At the end of July, the city had recorded more than 300 murders –more than any other U.S. city, but an improvement for Chicago. Murders were down 23 percent compared with the same point last year, and the city tallied 19 percent fewer shooting incidents.
The weekend’s violence underscored that although the city had witnessed a positive trend, several neighborhoods remain volatile.
Police have solved or made arrests in few of the killings – the murder clearance rate for the city has hovered around 20 percent in recent years.
The murder rate has become an issue for Emanuel, who is up for re-election in February. “What Chicago witnessed this weekend was absolutely horrific and should not be tolerated,” mayoral challenger Paul Vallas said. “Right now, Chicago has one of the worst clearance rates for homicides and other violent crimes among America’s major cities. This is a crisis in which four out of five killers in Chicago are literally getting away with murder.”