CHICAGO _ Six people were killed and 15 others were wounded in shootings over the Mother's Day weekend in Chicago, a dramatic drop in gun violence from the same weekend last year, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune.
Last year, one of the bloodiest weekends of the year occurred over Mother's Day, with more than 50 people shot, eight of them fatally, according to Tribune data. Fifteen of those victims were shot over a 3 {-hour period on Mother's Day.
The lower toll this past weekend continues a downward trend in gun violence in Chicago.
The city has logged at least 214 homicides this year compared with 227 this time last year, according to Tribune data. The number of people shot is down by about 9 percent: At least 1,174 gunshot victims this year compared to 1,297 people this time last year.
The worst of this past weekend's violence fell on Sunday, when five of the six fatal shootings occurred.
Around 2:35 a.m., two best friends were fatally shot while stopped at a traffic light in the South Austin neighborhood on the West Side, police said. The car continued down the street and crashed into a Mobil gas station. A man in a wheelchair was injured in the crash.
Later in the day, three men were shot to death within three hours in separate attacks on the South Side.
Just before the weekend started, a Chicago police officer was shot in his bulletproof vest and a 25-year-old woman was critically wounded when shots were exchanged at a drug corner, according to police.
