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CHICAGO - Forty people have been shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend as the Chicago Police Department canceled officers’ days off in anticipation of the historically violent unofficial start of summer.
About half of the shooting victims (22) were wounded on the West Side, while the South Side saw about 10 victims. The downtown area, which has seen several high-profile attacks in May, had three shooting victims.
By Monday morning, shootings had outpaced last year’s Memorial Day weekend when 37 people were shot, three of them fatally.
Six of this weekend’s shooting victims had died by Monday morning, authorities said. More than a quarter of victims were wounded in a single West Side police district — the 11th Harrison District — which had two mass shootings on Sunday:
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- In Lawndale, five people were wounded after gunmen opened fire on a crowd marking the anniversary of another teen’s killing. A 16-year-old girl was among the wounded in the early morning shooting in the 800 block of South Karlov Avenue. Shell casings and at least 97 evidence markers could be seen in the street outside Daniel Webster Elementary School.
- Later that day, a man was killed and four others wounded, including a gunman, during a domestic incident in Humboldt Park. The shooting led to a standoff with a police SWAT team. A gunman, 23, was arrested over an hour later and treated for a gunshot wound, police said.
Police work the scene where five people were shot near an elementary school May 29, 2022 on the West Side. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Other fatal shootings since 5 p.m. Friday:
- Jeremy Benson, 33, was shot and killed Sunday morning while driving in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, authorities said. He was shot while driving in the 4400 block of West Madison Street and crashed into a median, police said. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital.
- A man was killed early Sunday in Englewood when gunfire erupted during a birthday party. The shooting sent hundreds of people running in the 5700 block of South Carpenter Street. A 24-year-old was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Police placed a white cloth over the man, who was lying on a sidewalk near evidence markers. "They won’t even let me see his body," the man’s mother said. "They could at least let me hold his hand."
- Hours earlier, two men killed each other during a shootout in Englewood, police said. The shootout happened at 5 p.m. Saturday in the 5500 block of South Bishop Street, police said. Both men were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center. One of the men was identified as Derrick Washington, 29. The other man was 38.
- Saturday afternoon, a man was killed in Chicago Lawn on the Southwest Side. He was shot in his head around 1:30 p.m. in the 2400 block of West 63rd Street, police said. He died at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Police released no other details.
Ahead of the weekend, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday defended changing the seldom-enforced citywide youth curfew to 10 p.m. from 11 p.m., and her decision to impose a 6 p.m. weekend curfew on unaccompanied minors in Millennium Park after a fatal shooting at The Bean.
Thirty-two people were shot last weekend in Chicago.