After the year’s most violent weekend — in which 52 people were shot, eight fatally — the city’s top cop called the bloodshed “despicable.”
“Weekends like this remind us of the challenges we face and that they are complex and profound,” Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson told reporters Monday at police headquarters at 35th Street and South Michigan Avenue.
Police said most of the shootings were not random and were a result of an uptick in gang activity on the South and West sides. Johnson said 92 guns were recovered during the weekend — about double for what would be considered typical for a weekend in the city. And 18 people were arrested on gun-related charges, Johnson said.
The carnage comes on the heels of the Memorial Day weekend violence, which left at least 41 shot, including seven fatally.
As he has many times before, Johnson on Monday blamed part of the problem on a criminal justice system that, he said, is way too easy on repeat gun offenders.
“It’s ridiculous to me that we know when we arrest these gun offenders . . . half of them get out and are back on the street in a week or less,” Johnson said.
A rash of violence left 31 wounded during the first 12 hours of the weekend, which began at 5 p.m. Friday and ended 5 a.m. Monday.
Johnson ordered targeted patrols in areas susceptible to retaliatory incidents in response to the flurry, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement.
The wave of violence comes as police announced a decrease in the amount of shootings in the first five months of the year compared to the same period last year.
In the weekend’s latest fatal shooting, two men were killed Sunday while driving through Old Town on the North Side.
The pair were westbound in the 100 block of West North Avenue just before 6 a.m. when people in another vehicle began shooting at them, Chicago police said.
