After murder rates hit a 40-year low last year, Chicago is again in the grip of a wave of violence that has left dozens dead and forced parents to keep their children home from school for fear of stray bullets.
A weekend spree of violence that ended on Monday saw seven people killed in 36 separate shootings in just the latest bloodshed to draw calls for better gun control from city officials and community leaders.
And with more people out on the streets as warmer weather returns, police are worried the violence will only get worse.
PHOTO: EPA
Twenty-four of the city’s public school children have been slain since the academic year began in August; 21 of them were killed by shootings.
While just one was killed on school grounds — an 18-year-old boy shot to death in a parking lot on a Saturday afternoon — the violence in surrounding neighborhoods has created a climate of fear in the classrooms.
Parents and police are escorting students in high-risk housing projects to and from school in a program dubbed Operation Safe Passage, which began last month after gang violence escalated.
The city has tightened its curfew for teens and is even planning to deploy SWAT teams to help boost regular patrols.
Religious leaders have thrown open the doors of their churches and officials have expanded after-school programs to give children a safe place to play.
Community leaders and students have held rallies and vigils.
And yet the shootings have continued.
“We need to stop the killing right now,” said Reverend Walter Turner whose niece was shot on her way home from church just a few weeks ago.
Much of the violence has been limited to low-income and predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods on the city’s south and west side and can be traced to gangs.
But the Chicago Sun Times said it is time for the city’s wealthier residents to stop ignoring the violence just because they don’t hear the gunfire.
Borrowing the idea of a Colombian newspaper protesting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel movement, the paper reversed the type on its front page on Tuesday and ran a photo of the backs of a group of white people waiting to cross the street.
“We are trying to say to our fellow Chicagoans, in the most attention-grabbing manner we can, that turning our back on the violence killing our young people will not make it disappear,” the paper wrote in an editorial.
But even though the numbers may be down historically, they are still far too high, said Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan.
While the root causes of the violence — social inequality, poor parenting, gangs and drugs — are complex, getting guns off the streets would dramatically reduce the death toll, Duncan said.
“We know the answer and that’s why it drives me crazy,” he said, calling gun violence a public health epidemic.
“What we’re lacking is political courage,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including