Another Violent Chicago Holiday Weekend Leaves 77 Shot and 14 Dead
Monday mornings in Chicago never start with positivity. In fact, Monday morning is a time where most in the city begin their week with the more horrific news of more people being killed at alarming rates.
At least 77 people were shot in Chicago since the start of the July 4th holiday weekend, 13 of them killed.
The most heart-wrenching murder of the weekend was that of a 7-year-old young lady who was visiting her grandmother in the South Austin neighborhood. Not to take away any grief from victims of 2 mass shootings. One of which left four dead, including a 14-year-old boy, and another four wounded.
Around 7:02 p.m. Saturday, 7-year-old Natalia Wallace was shot in the forehead as she and other children played in the yard in the 100 blocks of North Latrobe Avenue. She was taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County where she later died, police said.
The family described Natalia as “sweet, shy, loving, and good at math.” In a statement to CBS’ Marissa Parra, Nathan Wallace, Natalias father said, “Kids outside playing, they shouldn’t have to worry about guns and people shooting”.
Even with the addition of 1200 extra uniformed officers this holiday weekend, Natalia’s death comes as Chicago continues to struggle with an especially harsh toll of violence that has continued to take the lives of children and other innocent lives. For as far back as I can remember these have been the numbers. A harsh reality that Chicago residents become more and more desensitized to.
On Saturday night, Mayor Lori Lightfoot took to Twitter to condemn the violence, including another child “whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun.”
“As families gather to commemorate the founding of our nation, we must ask ourselves: is this who we are as a city or as a country?” she wrote on Twitter. Adding, “We cannot grow numb to this. We are making progress in slowing shootings, but we have to do better, every single one of us.”
We are all praying the violence in Chicago as well as other large cities across the country finds an end soon. Our babies are dying!