Despite these grim numbers, there persists among many the notion that it is the city’s police officers who bear the greatest share of blame for all that ails Chicago. On Friday, Nykea Aldridge, the cousin of Chicago Bulls basketball star Dwyane Wade, was killed while pushing a pram, police said. She died soon after.
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“And the president is deeply concerned about addressing some of the root causes of violence in those communities”. The number of homicides ties the total recorded in August 1996. (The Chicago Tribune calculates an even higher number of victims, more than 2,800).
Chicago police said Thursday that 90 people were killed last month, a 66 percent increase over August 2015. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has blamed the spike on an increase in gang activity, and has called for stricter gun restrictions. The unfortunate occasion? A Town Hall discussion, hosted by The Undefeated, that addressed gun violence, policing and responsibility.
The surge in shootings has made national headlines and become a point of contention in the presidential campaign.
Some politicians and activists said the gun violence epidemic won’t be solved until government officials at the federal, state and city level create jobs and other opportunities in the most violence-plagued neighborhoods.
As Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson this weekend announced the arrests of two convicted felons in connection with Aldridge’s killing, he said, “This reprehensible act of violence is an example of why we need to change the way we treat habitual offenders in the city of Chicago”. In some places in the city, homicides are a weekly occurrence.
“Just sat up on a panel yesterday, The Undefeated, talking about the violence that’s going on within our city of Chicago, never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would be actually living and experiencing it”.
CHICAGO (AP) – Chicago recorded its deadliest month in two decades in August, part of a sharp rise in gun violence in the nation’s third-largest city this year.
The department on Thursday released data for last month. The FOP instead favors the Police Department hiring more full-time officers. Unless something miraculous happens, Chicago is going to shatter the numbers from a year ago. Cities like Washington D.C., Milwaukee, Boston, Baltimore. and NY have also experienced higher crime statistics for 2016 over that of previous year.
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As of Sunday, homicides so far this year total 459.
NEWS BRIEF Elijah Sims would have turned 17 on Wednesday. The businessman took to Twitter on Saturday to suggest that Aldridge’s killing underscored that “African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP”. “People with middle-class values and wherewithal have moved out, so what you have left are the poorest of the poor, the most hopeless of the hopeless, the most destitute of the destitute”, Arthur Lurigio, professor of criminal justice and psychology at Loyola University, told Al Jazeera.
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Another community leader reacting to Chicago’s violence is the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow Push Coalition.
