CHICAGO _ The last weekend of October was the deadliest so far this year in Chicago, including among its victims an eighth grade honors student and twin 17-year-old boys, according to police and data compiled by the Tribune.
Seventeen people were shot dead in the city between Friday afternoon and early Monday, an extraordinary toll even in a year that is far outpacing last year in shootings and homicides.
Up until now, Father's Day weekend had been the most violent with 59 people shot, 13 fatally. The same number of people were shot this past weekend but more of the shootings were fatal, according to Tribune data.
The weekend toll was also deadlier than the three long summer holiday weekends when violence typically spikes because of the warm weather. Six people were shot dead over the Memorial Day weekend, five over the Fourth of July weekend and 13 people over Labor Day weekend, according to Tribune data.
There have been at least 638 homicides so far this year, 217 more than this time last year, the data shows. At least 3,662 people have been shot in the city, 1,106 more than during the same period last year.
This past weekend there were shootings in every area of the city but the Far North and Northwest sides, according to police. Of the 17 people who were killed, seven were younger than 20 years old.
The youngest was 14-year-old Demarco Webster Jr., described by his grade school principal as one of her best students. Webster had planned to run for student council and try out for basketball, and he was being recruited for an NAACP leadership program.
Demarco was shot early Saturday while helping his father move out of a building in the 500 block of South Central Avenue, according to police and relatives.
A little more than 24 hours later, 17-year-old twins Edward and Edwin Bryant were killed in an apparent drive-by shooting in Old Town. Police responding to calls of shots fired found one of the boys lying on the sidewalk in the 400 block of West Evergreen Avenue and another around the corner in the 1300 block of North Hudson Avenue.
Both had been shot several times and were pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A shooting late Friday killed Brian Fields and Chiquita Ford, both 30. Fields had achieved some notoriety in March after he was shot while broadcasting video of himself live on Facebook.
He survived that attack and was with Ford in a car at a Back of the Yards gas station Friday when he was shot in the chest. Ford was shot in the side. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
