Chicago has worst weekend of 2019 with 52 people shot and ten murders.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a shooting. USA Today/AP

Chicago has had the worst weekend of 2019 with 52 people being shot and 10 people being murdered. USA Today. 8 of the people killed were shot while the other 2 were stabbed. Most of the shootings were gang related. Murder and shootings tend to increase during the warmer summer months in Chicago. Despite the violence, murders in Chicago have decreased since reaching a high in 2016. 

My Comment:

Another violent weekend in Chicago. It's pretty clear that the violence there is essentially a gang war. These gangs are trying to gain territory for the drug trade and they are shooting it out to do so. This results in a lot of shootings and a lot of deaths. It's been a long term ongoing problem for Chicago and despite some positive signs, it doesn't look like the violence is going to go away any time soon.

I don't know if the two stabbings are related to the gang war or not. It's very possible that they were as there is no rule that all gang violence has to be gun related but it's also possible that they were run of the mill homicides. 

Despite the violence it does seem like Chicago is getting a bit safer than it once was. That's not saying much though as many people are still dying or getting shot there every week. Still, the violence had almost nowhere to go but down due to the insane level of violence that had erupted there recently. Things may be getting better but it's nowhere near the point where it would be acceptable. I know that despite living near enough to the city to visit easily and there being a lot of cool things to see in the city, I haven't really considered driving down to Chicago due to the obvious safety issues. 

What can be done to bring the level of violence down? It's a difficult question. I can tell you that gun control isn't going to be something that would work. Illinois has some of the most draconian and strict gun laws in the Midwest and it has done nothing. Milwaukee, a similar city in Wisconsin, which has much looser gun laws, has only had 28 homicides so far this year, compared to the 206 killed in Chicago. Chicago has a lot more population, but even adjusted to the population, Milwaukee has less crime than Chicago despite Wisconsin having much looser gun laws..

I don't know that extra police would do much either. These kinds of murders are especially hard to solve as there are often very few witnesses and the ones that do exist have a very strong motive to not cooperate with police. That motivation is added on to the obvious reluctance to inner city black Americans to talk with police in general. In my criminal investigation class in college we were always told that street crime were among the hardest to solve due to the lack of physical evidence and witnesses. 

I think that having more police patrols might have some effect though. If they are around when the crime occurs they might have a chance to catch people in the act and they could even deter the crime from happening in the first place. It wouldn't help much but increased patrols might be an idea.

However, I think the main problem is the larger drug trade. These gangs are fighting for territory for the extremely lucrative drug trade. As long as drugs are pouring into the country there will be gangs fighting over the money that can be made. Chicago will need help from federal authorities and perhaps the border wall could help things. But until something changes with the drug problem in this country, I don't think the crime rate in Chicago will decrease significantly.