Chicago Fourth of July weekend shootings leave 19 dead, 104 wounded

The Fourth of July weekend was Chicago’s deadliest yet this year, with local media outlets reporting that 104 people were shot, leaving 19 dead.

The shootings tally, compiled by the Chicago Sun-Times, noted 13 children wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy injured by gunfire in a single incident, and a 5-year-old girl shot in the leg.

Local residents expressed dismay at the number of children shot, with a 27-year-old man telling the Chicago Sun-Times that much of the gun violence is driven by score-settling, but when “you see a whole bunch of kids, something should click in your head saying not to shoot.”

Two Chicago police officers were shot and wounded early Monday while trying to break up a crowd following Fourth of July gatherings, according to authorities.

A statement from police said they had responded to several large groups in the city, leading to multiple arrests.

“There’s been a lot of large crowd gatherings tonight, a lot of celebratory fireworks going off, kind of spontaneous,” police Superintendent David Brown said. “They were dispersing a crowd when they heard shots and felt pain.”

Police said one of the wounded officers was struck in the foot and the other was hit in the thigh. Both were taken to a hospital and their injuries were not life-threatening, police said.

Chicago has seen a number of mass shootings in recent weeks, stoking broader concerns about a spike in gun-related violence.

Statistics released Tuesday by the Chicago Police Department  through July 4 show essentially the same number of killings but 11 percent more shootings in the city so far this year compared to the same period a year ago.

In 2015, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned that the attack on America’s police would have tragic consequences:

 America faces a critical question right now. Many people—including some in very high office—are accusing law enforcement of racism and heavy-handedness. Police are under increasing scrutiny.  

President Barack Obama has said he wants to make the issue of race and law enforcement a priority for his remaining time in office. What will be the outcome of that effort? You can know just by looking at what has come from his previous statements and actions on this matter.  

It would be overstating it to say there is no racism among America’s law enforcement officers. But there are some few people who are scrutinizing and magnifying this issue for evil purposes. They are using it dishonestly to explain or excuse some terrifyingly dangerous behavior. They are stirring up emotion and anger—but none of it is truly intended to solve the problem.  

The results are inciting evils that are quickly becoming far worse than those they purport to solve! The nation’s police are being undermined in ways that will prove devastating to our cities in particular.  

America’s law enforcement is under attack. On one side people in communities are developing a mistrustful, hostile, antagonistic attitude, yelling at police, assaulting and even killing officers in some cases. Police are pulling back from doing their jobs for fear of attack, or losing their jobs or going to prison for doing anything that could be perceived as racist. On the other, the federal government is undermining local law enforcement and stripping it of power in an effort to centralize policing power on the federal level.  

You need to recognize just how dangerous these trends really are.  

“Police Under Attack,” August 2015, Philadelphia Trumpet