Another weekend of violence in Chicago left 46 wounded and seven killed.
Mass shootings peaked on Sunday and Mount Sinai hospital in Chicago had to stop accepting patients at one point due to the capacity limit being reached.
Two mass shootings occurred in the Lawndale neighborhood early Sunday leaving over a dozen wounded and one dead, reported CBS Chicago.
24th Ward Alderman Michael Scott speaks alongside @Chicago_Police after at least 15 people were shot in North Lawndale in the last 24 hours.
– 7 shot at Douglass Park
– 8 shot on 18th and Keeler (1 killed)@cbschicago pic.twitter.com/jNnLST5fQk
— Eric Cox (@EricCoxTV) August 4, 2019
Police said that the first shooting took place at around 1:20 a.m. in Douglas Park.
According to authorities, someone opened fire from a black Chevrolet Camaro at a group of people, wounding seven people.
The hospital went “on bypass” in the morning Roberta Rakove, Senior VP for External Affairs told CNN.
To go “on bypass” means that they stop accepting ambulance runs and they are rerouted to other trauma centers.
Less than three hours later, eight people were shot in the same neighborhood. Unidentified gunners started shooting at a large group at a party. A 33-year-old man named Demetrius Flowers was killed and seven others were wounded, including a 14-year-old boy who was hit in the thigh.
Flower’s father told CBS Chicago that Demetrius is the second son he lost due to violence.
“Please stop. It’s killing our families, it’s destroying the fiber of our communities. We have to stop this senseless killing, because if we don’t, there’s nothing going to be left. There’s nothing going to be left,” Keith Flowers said.
The most recent shooting happened around 10:15 p.m. on Sunday in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Police told CBS that the victims were driving in a car when someone in a silver sedan pulled up and opened fire, causing the driver, 21, to crash into a light box. The multiple gunshot wounds to his torso caused his death.
Police Chief Eddie Johnson held a press conference on Sunday, mentioning the three separate shootings.
“You have to stop yourself and ask what will it take before we get a handle on what’s going on,” Johnson said. “Not only in Chicago, but across the country.”
Area saturation teams and organized crime officers flooded Chicago’s west side following several multi-victim shooting incidents. This firearm with an extended clip was recovered Sunday by @ChicagoCAPS10 in the area where we expected potential retaliation. pic.twitter.com/VNNSOSZOD2
— Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) August 5, 2019
“From police departments to the court systems to prosecutors to legislators—we have to come together and figure out more common-sense solutions to these problems because clearly too many of our citizens are being shot and killed.”
Rakove mentioned that last year they had an even busier weekend, with more than 70 people shot.
“All Level 1 trauma centers were overwhelmed, but we all managed,” Rakove said of the previous year’s shootings. “This weekend was not that kind of weekend, but it was enough.”