Over The Holiday Weekend, Chicago Police Reported 100 Shots And 18 Homicides

CHICAGO — Over the long Fourth of July weekend, 100 people were shot in Chicago Police Reported, including two police officers, with 18 homicides, according to the city’s police department.

At least a dozen youngsters were among those injured. As of Tuesday morning, none of them had died, but at least three of the kids were in serious condition.

The carnage was akin to last year’s lengthy Fourth of July holiday when 17 people were killed and 70 more were injured. That weekend, a 7-year-old child and a 14-year-old boy were among the deceased.

A judicial system that enables persons accused of serious crimes, including murder, to be freed from detention on electronic monitoring, according to Police Superintendent David Brown, bears a large part of the blame for the gun violence.

At a press conference, Brown stated, “The courts letting people accused with murder back into the community…. is creating a hazardous atmosphere for all of us.”

Brown’s criticism of electronic monitoring drew a rebuke from Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who said in a statement Tuesday that it is “based on the constitutional concept should not be imprisoned before they are convicted unless they represent a serious risk to the community.”

Evans did not address Brown by name or specifically reply to his remarks regarding a 7-year-old girl who was tragically shot in April, reportedly by a guy who was under electronic surveillance in another case. However, he made it plain that such remarks were unjust.

“Looking at specific sad incidents in isolation may add to the notion that releasing people before trial rather than imprisoning them — whether under EM or other types of monitoring — leads to a rise in crime,” he said. “However, conjecture based on individual incidents is not the same as reality based on the big picture, and research has proven that bail reform hasn’t increased crime.”

Brown has been under fire for a spike in violent crime in 2020 compared to the previous year, which shows little signs of easing down so far this year. Even before the holiday weekend, the department reported 332 homicides in the first six months of the year, up from 338 in the same period the previous year, and more gunshot victims and incidents than in the same six-month period last year.

He continued up to where he left off last week when he was brought before the City Council to explain his crime-fighting methods ahead of one of the year’s most violent weekends.

Brown defended his department, saying in his briefing to media that his police had seized 244 illegal firearms during the holiday weekend, just as he said in his City Council appearance.

“We did our share in terms of strategy,” he added.