(TheLibertyRevolution)- Chicago is reeling from violent incidents that have begun 2021.
On Saturday night, an “hours-long shooting spree” resulted in four people being wounded and three people dead, the Chicago Police Department said. The spree began in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side all the way to the suburb of Evanston on the north side.
The suspect apparently had a long criminal history. It all began after he killed a student from the University of Chicago near its campus in Hyde Park.
According to David Brown, Chicago’s police superintendent, the suspect killed the student in a parking garage, then “walked into an apartment building a block away, where he shot a 46-year-old security guard who was sitting at the desk and a 77-year-old woman who was getting her mail. The guard was pronounced dead at a hospital and the older woman, who was shot in the head, was hospitalized in critical condition.”
According to a Chicago Tribune story, “the offender proceeded to the 9300 block of South Halsted Street, where he robbed a convenience store and fatally shot a 20-year-old man. A second person inside the establishment, an 81-year-old woman, suffered gunshot wounds.”
He then took off in a vehicle, but struck another vehicle driven by mother whose 15-year-old girl was also in the car. The suspect returned to that same convenience store later, which is where a first shootout with police occurred.
The suspect disappeared, though, but reemerged at a CVS in Evanston. He robbed that store, then “subsequently fled to a nearby IHOP restaurant where he shot a woman in the head.”
In a second shootout with police, this time with officers from Evanston’s police department, the suspect died. Brown said the entire rampage was the suspect “just randomly” shooting people. The Chicago PD later said the suspect documented a lot of the initial incident on social media.
According to the Tribune report:
“In a series of seconds-long videos poste to his personal Facebook page from Friday night on, [the shooter] displays wads of cash and alcohol in a vehicle while speaking unintelligibly to the camera. In one video, he can be heard saying, ‘I’m going to blow up the whole community.’ About 10:30 a.m. Sunday, it appeared Facebook disabled the man’s page after many of the videos had been shared and commented on dozens of times.”
Chicago experienced a surge in violent crimes in 2020, and 2021 has started out on the same path. There were almost two dozen shootings reported in the city this year before Saturday night’s rampage.
The arrival of cold weather in December typically results in a reduction in homicides and other violent in Chicago. This year, though, that hasn’t been the case.
The Chicago Sun-Times, for instance, has reported that just last weekend, 21 people were wounded and five people were killed across the city in incidents of gun violence.
This is a trend that has been happening in major cities throughout the country over the last year.
