Gun violence claims 14 lives over July 4 weekend in Chicago
- Nationwide, there were more than 400 shootings over the July 4 weekend and at least 150 people died, according to the Gun Violence Archive
- In protest of gun violence, a group of women in Chicago went on a hunger strike and slept in a tent over the Independence Day weekend
The United States celebrated Independence Day with parades, barbecues and fireworks, but in violence-plagued Chicago, 88 people were shot, 14 of them fatally.
The holiday weekend violence comes after increased media and police attention to the problem that has plagued Chicago all year, the nation’s third-largest city which is on pace for more murders than the 774 recorded in 2020 – which was Chicago’s second deadliest year in the last two decades and more than New York and Los Angeles combined.
Holiday weekends usually are especially deadly in Chicago, and because of that, members of Chicago’s City Council took the unprecedented step of grilling police superintendent David Brown for six hours on July 2 about police strategies.
Despite the meeting, 10 more people were shot than last weekend, when 78 were shot, 10 fatally, across the city.
Last year 87 people were shot in Chicago, 17 fatally, over a four-day stretch that included July 4. That is a day more than this holiday weekend, so this year’s July 4 gun violence was worse.
Nationwide, there were more than 400 shootings over the July 4 weekend and at least 150 people died, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive.
