One person died and four others were hurt in a shooting Tuesday in Chicago after which first-responders were interrupted by a crowd when they tried to provide first aid to those injured, police said.
Police arrived on the scene in the city’s South Side neighborhood and saw five people had been shot, Chicago Police Commander Don Jerome of the Ninth District said during a news conference.
“Officers immediately attempted to perform life-saving measures on those that were shot, and they were met by a hostile crowd,” Jerome said. “Members from the community and gang members from this crowd were actively fighting the police while they were trying to attend to the victims.”
One person died, and two others suffered critical injuries, he said. The other two people who were shot are in stable condition, police added.
No officers were injured, Jerome said.
Chicago saw a slight uptick in shootings last year, when 3,561 shootings were reported compared to 3,258 in 2020, data from the Chicago Police Department shows.
This year, there have been 779 shootings as of the week ending May 8, which means shootings are down 13 percent compared with the same time last year, the data shows.
On a broader scale, 2020 was the year the US saw the highest firearm homicide rate since 1994, according to data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The overall firearm homicide rate increased about 35 percent between 2019 and 2020, the CDC report said.
In 2020, 79 percent of all homicides involved guns, according to the CDC, which is somewhat higher than during the preceding five years.
Meanwhile in Chicago, police said they recovered three weapons related to the shooting.
After analyzing private video taken from the scene, police discovered that a vehicle fled the scene and crashed several blocks away, according to Jerome.
Two weapons were recovered from the vehicle and a third weapon was recovered from the scene. Police are currently searching for the occupants of that vehicle and no arrests have been made at this time, the police commander said.
“There’s a historic gang conflict between two rival gangs here. We don’t believe that the community is being targeted, but that it’s specific gang members that are targeting one another in this historic conflict,” Jerome added.
