City passes 500th fatal shooting with 6 dead, 29 hurt in weekend gun violence
(Lisa Larson/Flickr)
SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE - A man shot dead Friday evening was the 500th person to be killed in city gun violence since the start of the year during a weekend in which six men were killed and at least 29 other people were wounded in Chicago shootings.
The city reached 500 shooting homicides about a week later than it did last year, on Sept. 29, 2016, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times. At this point last year, there had been 511 people shot to death.
In all, the city has recorded 540 homicides since the start of this year, according to Sun-Times data.
The 18-year-old man who became the 500th person shot to death was found unresponsive by officers about 4:45 p.m. Friday in the 800 block of East 83rd Street in the East Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, according to Chicago Police. He suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died.
In the weekend’s latest fatal shooting, a 34-year-old man was found with a gunshot wound about 1:15 a.m. in the Scottsdale neighborhood on the Southwest Side. He was found inside a vehicle in the 4300 block of West 79th Street with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, police said. He was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died at 6:15 a.m., authorities said.
A 24-year-old man was killed less than an hour earlier in an East Chatham neighborhood attack. At 12:37 a.m., he was with several males, walking in an alley in the 8300 block of South Ingleside, when someone opened fire. The man was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
At 7:26 p.m. Sunday, a 30-year-old man was gunned down in the West Side Austin neighborhood. He was standing outside of a vehicle in the 1300 block of North Mason when another vehicle pulled up and someone inside shot him multiple times in the chest, police said. The vehicle then drove off. The man was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he died.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not released the identity of any of those fatalities, pending notifications of families.
Two other men were shot to death about 10:50 a.m. Saturday in the Pilsen neighborhood on the South Side. Alexis Salgado, 20, and a still-unidentified 18-year-old man were driving in the 1800 block of South Throop when they flashed a gun at someone standing on the street, police and the medical examiner’s office said. The person on the street pulled out their own gun and fired shots at the vehicle, striking both men. Salgado suffered a gunshot wound to his body and tried to get out of the vehicle, but collapsed; the younger man was shot in the neck, and both were pronounced dead at the scene.
The weekend’s latest shooting happened about 1:45 a.m. Monday in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side. A 20-year-old man was driving north in the 3300 block of South Morgan when a black SUV pulled alongside his vehicle and someone inside fired shots, striking him in the abdomen, police said. The man was taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.
At least 28 other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago between 4:30 p.m. Friday and 2 a.m. Monday.
Last weekend, five people were killed and at least 30 others were wounded in citywide shootings between Friday evening and Monday morning.