The extent of the injuries and the time of the shootings have not yet been released. The shooting happened in the 2700 block of West Flournoy Avenue in Chicago, police said, and lasted only a few seconds. A group of people had gathered near the intersection of California and Polk about 9:30 p.m. when at least two people in a passing vehicle fired indiscriminately into the crowd, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown explained. The attack was over within three seconds. Brown said the group was standing near the intersection, possibly for a balloon release, when a vehicle drove up and opened fire. Brown said surveillance video captured the entire shooting. Up to fourteen people were injured in a shooting in Chicago on Monday night The Halloween night attack happened in the Garfield Park neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side The victims were taken to several hospitals across the city A spokesman said up to 14 people may have been shot in the incident with some suffering life-threatening injuries, including children who were trick-or-treating. Victims range in age from 3 years old to adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s. One person was also reportedly hit by a car. The circumstances of the shooting are still under investigation, but it is believed that a vigil was being held at the intersection when the shooting began. Brown said the shooting was a drive-by that ended in a matter of seconds, but he could not determine if the incident was retaliation or gang-related. Brown said preliminary information indicated at least two shooters were seen in the video, though that number could change. The gunmen were seen firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Detectives were at the scene on Monday night. Police also hope the victims will be able to provide more information, Brown said. Ambulances transported the victims to various hospitals, including Stroger, Loyola and Mt. Sinai. “We took another girl, a little girl, about 13 years old, and brought her into this ambulance,” an eyewitness told Fox 32. “But the ambulance driver said, ‘No, we can’t bring her because you have worse people. . So we just sat her on the bumper.’ The eyewitness described how he found a little girl with a bullet wound below her knee and took her to a nearby hospital. He also saw an adult man who had reportedly been shot in the head. “He was on the ground and they said he was shot in the head and there was blood everywhere,” the man said. The investigation by the Chicago Police Department is ongoing. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Chicago Police, and a reward of up to $15,000 is being offered. Chicago recorded another bloody weekend with nearly three dozen shooting victims, including a teenager found shot in the head inside a car, two women struck while standing inside a kitchen and a man shot in the eye, authorities said. The outburst of violence occurred from 6pm on Friday until the end of Sunday. In all, 32 shooting incidents and 35 shooting victims were reported, including at least four minors. Police said at least five people were killed over the weekend. Monday night’s incident comes as the latest blow to the declining image of the troubled city under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who since taking office in late 2019 has seen crime at rates not seen in decades. The police could be seen standing on the pavement having run off the road The video was posted on the Citizen app by nearby residents as the incident unfolded on Monday A homeowner was able to capture video of the area where the shooting occurred in East Garfield Park Last week, Lightfoot’s office came under fire from fed-up citizens after they demanded she receive a 5 percent annual pay raise, despite growing criticism of her handling of violent crime in the city, as well as her failure to address her murder. price. Lightfoot, who currently earns an annual salary of $209,915, balked at an ordinance that would give the mayor, city clerk and treasurer access to a raise each year. If approved, the pay increase would see the city official’s salary increase to $216,210 starting May 22 next year. Officials from both parties have criticized recent “lawlessness” seen in the city under Lightfoot, which reached levels not seen in decades during the pandemic and has since failed to return to pre-pandemic levels. The progressive infamously cut $59 million from the Chicago Police Department’s 2020 budget during the Defund the Police protests — but made an abrupt halt to that policy in August 2021 amid rising crime and mass officer departures of the peace of the city. Compounding the riots were riots by Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police supporters — both movements that Lightfoot had touted during her campaign. At the time, the city recorded its deadliest year in decades, with 797 murders in 2021 — the most since the mid-1990s. Crime, especially shootings. Last week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed giving herself an annual raise to keep up with inflation. He currently earns more than $200,000 a year The city of Chicago’s police department, meanwhile, is also increasingly at odds with Lightfoot, whose advocacy of progressive policies has also put her in the crosshairs of conservative critics across the country. A 700-page Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity-Today Act, which Lightfoot sponsored in January, enacted a number of criminal justice reforms in Illinois, including ending cash bail in January. Lightfoot has since also denounced the ‘defund the police’ movement, unveiling a new plan to – ironically – ‘refund the police’. It came as part of a plan that pumped $16.7 billion from the federal government into the police department, increasing its annual budget to $1.9 billion from $1.7 billion. The plan relied heavily on money from Washington to dig the city out of a deficit that reached new heights under Lightfoot and outlined prospective funding for new community programs that the mayor argued would help the troubled city overcome ongoing pandemic, while addressing the prevailing issues of gun violence and crime. About a year later, violent crime is still everywhere in Chicago, especially compared to before the pandemic — around the time Lightfoot was sworn into office in May 2019. According to the latest statistics from the Chicago Police Department, crimes are still on the rise after a wave of incidents in both 2021 and 2020. Murders are up 32 percent since 2019, with 564 murders recorded since the start of the year – compared to 428 during this time in 2019. Murders have fallen slightly since 2020, however, during the peak of the pandemic, when officials recorded a record 644 murders, a mark that was then surpassed in 2021, when 676 murders occurred. The number was the most prominent since the mid-1990s. Since then, murders are down slightly by 17%, but thefts, robberies and general crime are all up from last year – which was one of the worst crimes in the city’s history.
