The Fourth of July holiday weekend brought an explosion of gunfire to Chicago, with more than 50 people shot and 14 killed, authorities said on Monday, according to Reuters.
During a Monday news conference, just hours after two more people were shot to death earlier in the day, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said his department's best efforts could not prevent the bloodshed that spiked dramatically on Sunday, Reuters reported.
Chicago's total of 53 shooting incidents for the holiday weekend easily eclipsed Detroit and New York combined, which had a total of 46 shooting incidents, 10 of which were fatal, according to Reuters.
"Going into the holiday weekend we had a plan, including putting hundreds more officers on the streets and what were the results?" McCarthy asked, Reuters reported. "The results were a lot of shootings, a lot of murders, unfortunately."
The shootings over the Fourth of July holiday weekend included eight incidents that involved police, according to McCarthy, Reuters reported. In five of those instances, officers shot at suspects, killing two 16-year-olds.
McCarthy said that based on preliminary investigations, all of the officer-involved shootings appear to have been justified, including one in which officers fired after a suspect who tried to run them over with his car, according to Reuters.
McCarthy, who came to the nation's third-largest city from New York, used the opportunity to again highlight the number of guns that are on Chicago's streets, Reuters reported.
While Chicago has tough gun sales and possession ordinances, McCarthy maintains that Illinois needs stiffer penalties for people who violate gun laws, according to Reuters.
McCarthy said his officers are seeing more suspects who are reluctant to throw down their guns when confronted by police because they're more concerned with harsh treatment from their gangs if they lose their weapons than the legal system if they are arrested with them, Reuters reported.
The latest spate of shootings also indicates how dangerous the streets can be, particularly in the summer when the warm weather puts more people on the streets, according to Reuters.
McCarthy noted that nearly half of the 53 shooting incidents over the holiday weekend happened on Sunday, when temperatures climbed into the upper 80s, Reuters reported.
The superintendent said as of July 6, there have been 185 homicides, compared to the same period last year with 196, though there have been 46 more shooting incidents than last year, according to Reuters.
