CHICAGO – Thirty-one males, ranging from 17 to 41, and three females, ages 26 through 31, were shot and wounded over the weekend in Chicago's most dangerous neighborhoods. One female, age 29, was shot and killed in the South Shore neighborhood. While the statistics are grievous, they were markedly less than last weekend's numbers. Altogether thus far in August 2018, 27 Chicagoans have been shot and killed, 151 shot and wounded making the total of 178 shot in the first half of the month.
Chicago's killing spree is once again the focus of national news – while Chicagoans celebrate the Cubs in 1st place on the city's safest north neighborhoods, things are very different in the city's south and west neighborhoods. (For those not familiar with Chicago's geography, there are no "eastern residents" – Lake Michigan is Chicago's eastern neighborhood.)
Is it fair to say the whole city is amid "killing fields"? According to a map posted on "HeyJackass.com" – no, not really.
On the map below, the blue areas have had no deadly shootings thus far in 2018. The golden areas have had less than five. That's what the northern part of the city looks like.
It's not until the majority black American neighborhoods of Austin and West Garfield just a few miles west of Chicago's Magnificent Mile that we see neighborhoods in which 25 or more have been killed in 2018. Then its the southern black neighborhood of Englewood where over 25 have been killed – spread among a few smaller blue neighborhoods where no deaths have occurred.
The next generation of male African Americans in these areas are dying – with numbers reminiscent of wartime. What will be done to stop it? How will Mayor Emanuel turn things around? Or does he see any need to bother?
