After violent Chicago weekend, Pfleger calls on communities to turn shooters in

CHICAGO - Calls to end the violence are growing louder.

"Unacceptable" -- that is how Father Michael Pfleger of Saint Sabina Church described this weekend's gun violence in Chicago.

On Monday, Pfleger held a rally with the community to call for change.

“I’m just really sad and heartbroken and really confused,” said Yolanda Addison.

Addison says her son, Toby Boens, was shot and killed on Chicago’s West Side on Father’s Day. He was 22-years-old.

“He didn’t get to see his son on Father’s Day,” Addison said.

Father Pfleger calls the gun violence this past weekend "disgusting” and he's demanding three things change.

First, he wants the city and state to act as aggressively with gun violence as he says they did with COVID-19.

“We had press conferences. We had them every day about the virus. But nobody’s talking about the violence,” Pfleger said.

He also wants the police department to solve more crimes because he says if cases are not solved, people will not be afraid to get caught.

“Today is exactly three weeks and one day since I've been shot and it's the first day that I heard from any police officer in Chicago,” said gun violence victim Teyonna Lofton.

Finally, Pfleger urged the community to break what he calls a "code of silence" and turn shooters in to police.

“This cannot be tolerated. This is not normal. We have people living in the post-traumatic stress of poverty, violence and a virus,” he said.

Father Pfleger says he did talk to Mayor Lori Lightfoot Monday and expects her to follow through with crimes being solved and followed up on.