As widespread protests occasioned by the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer spread across the United States, Chicago police have said that 16 people were shot and killed while at least 30 were injured in shootings across the city over the weekend.
The unrest erupted after a weekend of chaos in Chicago, as peaceful protests evolved into clashes with police with properties set ablaze.
The most recent fatal shooting involved two men driving down East 95th Street at approximately 1.41 pm yesterday.
A person in a dark-colored SUV opened fire, striking two victims.
According to police, a 39-year-old man and a 31-year-old man were shot in the head, and both men were pronounced dead at the scene.
The city’s first fatal shooting of the weekend happened on South Lamon Avenue at around 12.41 pm on Friday.
Police responding to a ShotSpotter alert in the area found a 31-year-old man lying on the street with multiple gunshot wounds.
Police announced that the man was pronounced dead at the scene, and detectives are continuing to investigate the incident.
At around 4 pm on Friday on South Michigan Avenue, a 28-year-old man was inside a property when a woman fired shots at him, hitting him in the chest.
The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The woman was taken into custody and detectives recovered a weapon from the scene.
Recall that on May 25, 2020, Floyd, an African-American man, died in Powderhorn, a neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd died.
The fallout from Floyd’s death has seen demonstrations and protests in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area which were initially peaceful on May 26, but later that day became violent as windows were smashed at a police precinct, two stores were set on fire, and many stores were looted and damaged.
Some demonstrators clashed with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Additional protests developed in over 100 cities throughout the United States and internationally.
Chicago, under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, recently also saw its deadliest Memorial Day weekend in years, which included 10 deaths and 39 wounded.
