On Saturday, Chicago police Superintendent Jody Weis held a press conference warning area gang members to stop the violence, or the department would make their lives miserable. Unfortunately, in just 50 hours over the weekend, five people were fatally shot and at least 25 wounded throughout the city--and many incidents have been linked to gangs.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that three of the murders--and many of the shootings--happened on the city's West Side, where the department is targeting area gangs.
The latest innocent victim of Chicago violence is Darrell McKinney. CBS 2 Chicago reports that 15-year-old McKinney was at a block party in the 900 block of North Harding Saturday at 7 p.m., when gunfire erupted. McKinney, "an exemplary student and athlete" at Orr High School, was shot in the chest as a gang member was reportedly chasing and shooting at someone else. He was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital hours later.
"He was a wonderful kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," a friend of McKinney's family told the Sun-Times, adding that the boy's mother was "doing everything she could" to keep her family out of harm's way.
The teen's mother recalled dropping him off at the block party earlier in the day to CBS 2:
"He was smiling and laughing, and doing what he normally do, being himself, and then he just turned and looked back at me and smiled 'cause he knows I never just pull off, I always watch him. And then he looked at me and let me know, like 'bye, mom,'" said Vanessa McKinney, Darrell's mother.
McKinney's death came after Weis and federal prosecutors met with reputed leaders from the city's West Side to put pressure on them to stop the violence, the Associated Press reports.
Sources told the Sun-Times that "when one of those gangs is involved in a killing. . . authorities plan to make their leaders' lives miserable, doing everything from towing their cars for parking violations, to ramping up parole visits, to pulling them over repeatedly for traffic stops."
One parolee who met with the department called this meeting "a gimmick."
Other victims of violence over the weekend include 24-year-old Edward Ramos, 23-year-old Wesley Taylor, 17-year-old Adolfo Guijardo-Soria and 31-year-old David Johnson. All died from gunshot wounds.
The Sun-Times has a complete breakdown of reported shootings and murders that happened in Chicago this weekend here.