Shootings Up Citywide Despite Pandemic And Stay-At-Home Order; Humboldt Park In Particular Struggles
CHICAGO (CBS) -- First, the good news – crime is down in Chicago during the pandemic.
The bad news is that shootings are still up.
One of the biggest jumps from last year to this year can be seen - and heard - in Humboldt Park. As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported Tuesday evening, the violence was capped off with two more shootings in that community on Monday night.
Chicago Police reported to at least two calls for shots fired. Despite the stay-at-home order, gun violence is up significantly from last year.
One call for shots fired in around 9:30 p.m. Another call followed for a 24-year-old with a gunshot wound to the head less than 24 hours later.
This year to date, shootings in the Humboldt Park community are up about 14 percent during the same period in 2019. There have been 156 shootings this year, versus 134 shootings last year.
And this all comes during a time when residents are supposed to be sheltering in their homes.
On Friday, officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert near Spaulding Avenue and Ohio Street and discovered a 21-year-old man lying outside with a gunshot wound to the neck.
He died on the scene.
The week of April 27 to May 3 paints an even sharper picture of the gun violence problem in the area. Humboldt Park saw nine shootings that week in 2019, and 16 in the same week this year.
We reached out to Chicago Police to ask about the surge, but were told for safety reasons, they could not talk about policing strategy or deployment numbers.
We also reached out to Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th). There was no word as of 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, shootings have dropped in some areas.
If we look at that week of April 27, Austin still has the most incidents but that community has actually seen a significant drop from the year before. The Roseland neighborhood was also down slightly.
