Chicago parents tell their kids to leave city, stay at college due to violence

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Even Mother's Day couldn't stop the violence in Chicago. Nine people were killed, including a 16-year-old boy, and another 43 were wounded in the city over the weekend.

With just nine days into May, 20 people have been shot and killed and 96 more have been wounded. So far in 2016, 187 people have been shot to death in Chicago.

These totals have some Chicago families worried about the summer, so much that they are making plans for their kids to leave town. Families are even shipping their kids to a relative's house or telling their teenagers to stay at college.

“We are moving, we are getting out of the city, period," said Reushunda Jones, who lost her 16-year-old son in a drive-by shooting this past January.

Antwan McBee was in a car with his brothers near 62nd and Stony Island Avenue when police say someone opened fire and he was struck in the head and the arm. He died several hours later at the hospital.

“It's not a good feeling at all to be kicked out because of the violence. You want your kids to have a stable place,” said Jones.

Some of her friends aren't moving their entire families, just their teenagers. She has a friend whose son goes to college in Indiana.

“She told him, he's not coming home for the summer and there's a lot of them,” said Jones. “I have another friend, her son joined the Navy just to get away from the street violence.”

In this weekend's 9 homicides, the youngest victim was 16 and the oldest was 58 years old. Jones says it doesn't matter where you live, what you look like or how innocent you are, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time you could fall victim to gun violence.

“They are not taking no names or nothing, babies, mommies, grandmothers, cat, dog, the whole family,” she said.

Chicago's police Superintendent Eddie Johnson is calling the violent Mother's Day weekend unacceptable. He says this summer is a concern of theirs, but they are making plans district wide.

“All of our deputy chiefs in the areas and our district commanders have put plans in place to address a possible problem with the violence,” said the Superintendent.

He wouldn't go on record with specific plans to battle the gun violence this summer. But at least one district commander said recently that part of their summer plan is to have more officers on foot and on bike.