Chicago weekend murders: 8 dead including 18-year-old Deonte Harris
The Chicago Police Department will increase patrols following another violent weekend in the city. Eight more people were murdered, including 18-year-old graduate from Bogan High School.
Deonte Harris, 18, who had just enrolled at Olive-Harvey College, was shot to death at 10:30 a.m. Sunday
Chicago police said that over the three-day period of Friday to Sunday, seven people were fatally shot and another was stabbed to death. Dozens of other people were shot.
“Chicago will never turn its back on its own children. We are better than that,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday morning, announcing that 319 police officers will be reassigned from desk duty to the streets as part of his 2016 city budget.
Those spots will be filled by civilians.
photo Joel Bombardier via Flickr
The Chicago gun violence is among the worst in the country and the city struggles to curb the crime as the city already as some of the strictest gun laws.
CBS noted that murders in Chicago rose to 516 in 2012, only the second time homicides surpassed 500 since 2003. Then in 2013, the number dropped to 415, the lowest murder total for Chicago in nearly 50 years.
Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, said the plan was expected to cost $20 million and had already been accounted for in the 2016 budget recommendation. The office said the civilian employees will work as crossing guard supervisors, nurses, freedom of open information officers and other positions that are now filled by police offices.
“While we have made important strides to refocus our resources in the past four years, there are still a number of highly trained police officers doing administrative work,” the mayor said in a statement. “So we asked a simple question of officers filling administrative roles: Do you need a gun, a star and arrest powers to do your job?”
The number of shooting incidents climbed to 1,753 so far this year, or nearly 300 more than in the same period last year. Chicago has been at the center of the story of gun violence, particularly since homicides climbed past the 500 mark – far higher than the totals reported in the much larger cities of New York and Los Angeles.
The 2015 stats reveal that almost 79% percent of victims are black with 17.6% Hispanic, killed by 68.8% blacks and 17.8% Hispanics.
Crime Scene Tape photo/edited pic from FBI.gov
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