102 shot, 15 fatally, in Chicago over July 4 holiday weekend
CHICAGO -- The violence plaguing Chicago made international headlines Wednesday, after a bloody Fourth of July weekend.
Of the 102 people shot since Friday night, 15 have died. Police said most of the shootings happened Monday night on the South and West sides of the city.
"You just destroyed somebody's family," one of the victim's relatives, John Davis, said. His uncle, 56-year-old Tyrone Burdine, was fatally shot Tuesday evening in front of his home, with children narrowly escaping the gunfire.
"Here comes this car speeding through the alley, shooting. My mom could have got killed, my auntie's kids could have got killed. They don't care," Davis said.
Burdine was among 15 people in Chicago shot and killed over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Aaron Gordon, 21, of south suburban Country Club Hills, was also among the deaths. His family is overcome by grief.
"I just don't understand how he's gone. He's gone, and there's no getting him back. No getting my baby back," said his mother Sherice Mann-Stinson.
Gordon was dropping two young cousins at a relative's home in Chicago when police said gunfire erupted in an apartment building parking lot. A bullet intended for someone in another vehicle instead hit Gordon in the face while he sat in his car two parking spots away. The gunfire barely missed his 6-year-old and 8-year-old cousins, who were sitting in the back seat.
"What if they had shot them? What if it wasn't my son and it was the babies, because there were more children out there," Mann-Stinson said.
"Mothers, I challenge you to take the guns out of your children's hands. I challenge you, women, to put the guns out of your homes," said Patricia Jones, Gordon's grandmother. "We are outliving our youth."
Detectives said they believe several of the shootings were motivated by gang retaliation, and alcohol was a factor in many others.
"We're not happy, I can tell you that. Definitely not happy," Chicago Police Department First Dep. Kevin Navarro said.
Chicago Police staffed 1,300 additional officers, made arrests before the weekend of those with repeat offenses and active warrants and used the technology of the AFT's ballistic mobile van. Despite the extra missions and technology, there were eight murders through the Fourth of July and six murders in the early morning hours Wednesday.
"It amazes me people to this day that somebody gets up in the morning and decides that they're going to go out and shoot somebody," Navarro said.
A coalition of clergy and elected officials shared their outrage with the violence this weekend and demands for more to be done to make all Chicago's neighborhoods safer.
"You don't have to be guilty to be killed, you just have to be in the environment," Rev. Jesse Jackson said.
Community activist Andrew Holmes comforts many families of murder victims in Chicago. He has been struggling to keep up over the weekend.
"It sends a bad message - that we have a lot of illegal guns on the street. We still have a long way to go," Holmes said.
The coalition that spoke Wednesday afternoon on the West Side plans a "state of emergency tour" through some of the most impacted neighborhoods.
