CHICAGO _ Five weeks into the new year, more people are being shot in Chicago than this time last year but far fewer people are being killed, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune.
After a weekend when three people were slain and 18 others were wounded, the number of people shot in the city this year is at least 349, 25 more than during the same period last year, the data show. That's an increase of around 8 percent.
The number of homicides so far is at least 59, down from 74 this time last year. That's a decrease of 20 percent. Last year was the deadliest for Chicago since the 1990s.
Two 15-year-old boys were among those killed over the weekend, police said.
On the Far South Side, someone in a gray Pontiac shot Willie Woodus, a freshman at Fenger High School, in the head, chest and abdomen as he walked in the 11400 block of South Stewart Avenue on Friday afternoon, authorities said. He lived less than half a mile from where he was shot.
About 10 hours later, on Saturday morning, Clavont Eubanks was killed in a Far South Side park in the 2100 block of East 97th Street. He ran to a nearby home after he was shot and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later, police said.
The third weekend homicide was sparked by an argument on the Southwest Side, police said. A 27-year-old man was with a woman in the 4700 block of South Leamington Avenue when a black truck came up and the people inside began to fight with them, police said. The people in the truck then fired, killing the man and wounding the woman.
