CHICAGO _ With three weeks left in the year, Chicago has so far posted 636 homicides, trailing this time last year by 118 killings.
But as the city closes in on the end of the year, it far surpasses the homicide counts as of this day in 2014 and 2015. In 2015, the city saw 467 such deaths, and 416 in 2014.
This weekend, five more people were shot and killed across the city.
They were among 19 who were shot from Friday afternoon to early Monday, totaling 3,429 shooting victims so far in 2017.
The weekend's first homicide happened Friday in the South Side's Back of the Yards neighborhood around 5:50 p.m., police said. A 34-year-old man, identified as Manuel Godinez, was shot in the neck in the 4300 block of South Wood Street after someone fired at him from a minivan.
Two men were also killed in separate shootings within 20 hours Saturday and Sunday mornings in the Far South Side's Fernwood neighborhood.
In the weekend's latest homicide, a 24-year-old died from a gunshot wound to the leg Sunday evening, police said. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital after the shooting in the 1300 block of South Komensky Avenue on the West Side.
Also among those shot was a 13-year-old boy who was injured in a double shooting in the South Side's South Shore neighborhood Friday around 10:40 p.m. An 18-year-old man was also injured.
