CHICAGO _ In a series of tweets, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump's daughter and a top White House adviser, drew national attention to Chicago's problems with gun violence.
Her comments on Twitter come amid an increasing national drumbeat calling for Congress to enact new gun restrictions following the bloody weekend in Texas and Ohio.
"As we grieve over the evil mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, let us not overlook that Chicago experienced its deadliest weekend of the year," Ivanka Trump wrote Tuesday on Twitter. "With 7 dead and 52 wounded near a playground in the Windy City _ and little national outrage or media coverage _ we mustn't become numb to the violence faced by inner city communities every day."
Ivanka Trump's comments followed a weekend mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 dead and 26 wounded, and another just hours later in Dayton, Ohio, where nine people were killed and 27 injured.
Her count for Chicago's weekend shootings are higher than the numbers tallied by the Chicago Tribune. There were 55 people from ages 5 to 56 shot over the weekend in the city, including seven fatalities, according to the Tribune's count, and nearly all of the gun violence occurred on the West and South sides.
At least 1,600 people have been shot in Chicago this year, and there have been at least 300 homicides, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune. Both numbers are below last year.
Chicago's gun violence has been a frequent target for conservative critics who use it to attack the Democratic Party.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot visited Washington, D.C., in April, where she met with Ivanka Trump in the West Wing. They discussed workforce development and criminal justice reform, Lightfoot said. They also took a photo together that was criticized by progressives and some Chicago residents, though Lightfoot backers said it's important for the mayor to meet with anyone who may be able to help the city with its myriad problems.
Lightfoot's office did not have an immediate response to Ivanka Trump's tweets.
A former federal prosecutor, Lightfoot campaigned on reducing crime and made it a top priority in her inaugural address, declaring there is "no higher calling than restoring safety and peace in our neighborhoods." The city's seen mixed results in reducing crime early in Lightfoot's administration.
Police have touted lower shooting rates compared with last year, but Lightfoot has repeatedly decried the city's violence. Early on in her administration, she began convening a weekly gathering of police brass for what she first called "Accountability Mondays," where they discuss crime-fighting strategies and assess the weekend's results.
Those meetings have since moved to Tuesday.
Ahead of the July 4 holiday, Lightfoot was asked if she's satisfied by the fact that crime is down year over year and said no "because there's still so much more that we need to do."
"We are ahead in violent crimes. We're down in homicides, we're down in shootings, and that's because people are working really, really hard," Lightfoot said. "Our Police Department absolutely is doing a yeoman's job. There's more work to be done."
Ivanka Trump's comments also follow pointed remarks Lightfoot made on Monday calling for President Trump to set "a better, clearer moral tone" as the nation's leader and back expanded gun control."
"What he's been doing is blowing every racist, xenophobic dog whistle, and when you do that, when you blow that kind of dog whistle, animals come out," Lightfoot said Monday, referring indirectly to Trump's incendiary tweets and campaign speeches that have included calling Mexican immigrants "rapists."
Trump should use "his weight in Congress to move forward on common-sense gun reform," Lightfoot said Monday.
"If the president weighs in, if he shows these Republicans that they can actually have courage, we can get this done," Lightfoot added. "But if he stands back and continues to do what he's been doing and he just tweets and he demonizes and he skims the surface, it matters not."
