At least 43 people were shot, seven fatally, in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend even as severe storms kept people indoors and 1,200 extra officers patrolled the streets.
The toll was slightly higher than last year’s Memorial Day weekend, when 39 people were shot, seven of them fatally, according to shooting data kept by the Tribune. In 2017, 45 people were shot, seven of them killed. And in 2016, 71 people shot, six of them fatally, in one of the most violent Memorial Day weekends in recent years.
“That is just an unacceptable state of affairs,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters after a Monday ceremony at a Grant Park monument to commemorate the nation’s war dead.
The new mayor said she rode with officers Saturday night and responded with them to a shooting on the South Side. She also spoke of the frequency of email notifications she receives alerting her to shootings.