Funny you didn't hear about this unspeakable statistic from the usual gun control crowd. I can't imagine why.
Chicago experienced its most violent Memorial Day weekend in five years — 9 killed, 42 wounded — despite stepped up police patrols and a focus on neighborhood programs that city officials hoped would provide peaceful alternatives.
About half of those shot were on the West Side, most of them in a single police district, the 11th, where there were two mass shootings on Sunday. On the South Side, at least 23 people were shot. And downtown, where there has been a spike in shootings all year, four people were hit by gunfire.
I just wanna stress the astonishing, completely unexpected development here: Chicago rolled out a bunch of "neighborhood programs" to offer "peaceful alternatives" to city residents, and it still didn't stop the psychopathic gang violence that has been ravaging the city for years.
The city really did lean into this whole thing:
Weekend programs in 15 high-crime neighborhoods targeted for the city's "whole-of-government" approach — including music-and-game-filled "kickbacks" with DJs that have already served 12,000 young people — will be held later into the night to fill gaps pinpointed in conversations with young people in those neighborhoods.
"We need to be present — with our resources, with our community partners — at times on Friday and Saturday night when they're needed most," Lightfoot said.
And yet it didn't matter—the violence continued unabated.
Maybe the problem isn't that the city doesn't have enough "kickbacks" with "music and games." Maybe the problem is social chaos underscored by persistent fatherlessness and largely unprosecuted crime throughout the entire city for years.
Just something for the mayor's office to consider for next Memorial Day!
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