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Chicago Shootings Surpass The 1,000 Mark; When Will The Cries Of Mothers Stop?

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The mother’s cries filled the empty street in Bridgeport as her 17-year-old son lay under a white sheet behind yellow crime scene tape.

“I just need to touch him,” she cried out. “I just need to see it’s my child. Please.”

Then in a final plea, she screamed, “Just let me get him.  Let me get him.”

But a friend held her back, wrapping his arms around her as police took photos of Richard Edwards, who was shot around 2 a.m. Saturday in the 700 block of West 35th Street. He was one of five people killed in Chicago over the weekend as the number of people shot in the city this year passed 1,000.

Chicago has hit the somber milestone even sooner than the violent year of 2012, when the city saw 500 homicides for the first time since 2008.  Shootings that year were up 11 percent. The city reached the 1,000 mark on June 6 in 2012. In 2013 it was on June 26 and last year it was on June 15.

This year, Chicago passed the mark sometime late Thursday into early Friday morning, according to data collected and analyzed by the Chicago Tribune.

Through Monday morning, about 1,050 people had been shot in the city since the year began, according to the Tribune’s data. Through June 8 last year there were 924 people shot. In 2013 the number was 820 through June 8, and in 2012 it was 981.

In the Bridgeport shooting, Edwards and a friend were leaving a party when they were both shot, police said. Edwards was wounded on the side of his chest and died at the scene. The friend, 18, was shot in the hand and shoulder and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

After covering Edwards’ body, officers put handcuffs on a man and appeared to take him into custody. Half a block south, at 35th Place and Halsted, a black revolver lay on the ground, cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape.

The other fatal shootings over the weekend:

• Two men were killed early Sunday in a drive-by shooting in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side.

The men, both 19, were driving in the 1600 block of North Cicero Avenue about 3:50 a.m. when a light-colored car pulled alongside and someone inside fired shots, said Officer Stacey Cooper, a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman.

One man was struck in the head and the other suffered several gunshot wounds to his body, Cooper said.

Both were taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, Cooper said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office had not identified the two men as of Monday morning.

• About 9:55 p.m. Friday, a 27-year-old man was fatally shot in the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side, Greer said.

Officers discovered Juan Ugalde lying unresponsive on a sidewalk on the northwest corner of 23rd Place and Washtenaw Avenue with a gunshot wound to the side of his face, according to the medical examiner’s office and police. Ugalde, of the 2800 block of West 21st Street, was pronounced dead at the scene.

• Shortly after 6 p.m. Friday, a 34-year-old man died after being shot in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side, police said.

Laurance Boyd, of the 12700 block of South May Street in south suburban Calumet Park, was sitting in a parked car in the 1300 block of West 122nd Street when someone approached and fired shots before fleeing east on 122nd, according to the medical examiner’s office and Officer Bari Lemmon, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department.

Boyd was shot twice in the back and was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 8:24 p.m., according to the medical examiner’s office and police.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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