Shortly before midnight on Friday, a 29-year-old man walked into the emergency room at Chicago’s Saint Anthony Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. The man told police he was driving through the city when “someone in a white SUV drove past and started shooting.” He is currently listed in critical condition.
CBS News reports that at least seven people were killed and 12 others wounded over the weekend in Chicago. The article details each incident individually, noting the neighborhoods where the shootings occurred as well as the ages of the victims.
The article notes that “unless otherwise noted, no one was in custody in the shootings above.” Sadly, among all of these incidents, only one person of interest was “transported to the area for questioning,” and in another case, a suspect was arrested. The article describes the latter incident as follows:
At 3:46 a.m., in the 5500 block of West Thomas Street, police officers responded to a call of a burglary in progress involving a vehicle. Three suspects got into a sedan and fled south on Waller Avenue before intentionally crashing into two marked CPD squad cars near Waller and Chicago Avenue. One officer was pinned inside their vehicle and opened fire, shooting one of the suspects, who was taken to Stroger Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. One other suspect was arrested at the scene, but a third suspect escaped. Police recovered a gun that the third suspect discarded at the scene.
Coming on the heels of a bloody Labor Day weekend that left eight dead and more than 50 wounded by gunfire, the violence heightens the likelihood that President Donald Trump will follow through on plans to deploy federal troops to the city to crack down on crime.
ABC News reporter Selina Wang asked Trump on Sunday why he was targeting Chicago and Boston when other cities have more crime.
“Excuse me, do you know how many people were killed in Chicago last weekend? Eight. You know how many people were killed in Chicago the week before? Seven,” he replied. “You know how many people were wounded? 74 people were wounded. You think there’s worse than that? I don’t think so.”
In the clip below, NBC News reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked Trump if he was threatening to go to war with Chicago.
Trump responded, “When you say that, darling, that’s fake news.”
“Why are you using the Department of Defense?” she asked.
Trump said, “Listen, be quiet. You don’t listen. You never listen. That’s why you’re second rate. We’re not going to war. We’re going to clean up our cities. We’re going to clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war. That’s common sense.”
The hyper-partisan Alcindor was referencing Trump’s weekend post on Truth Social which features an AI-generated image of Trump as Lt. Colonel Kilgore from the film Apocalypse Now. Chicago is burning in the background. He writes: “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
The post was clearly intended as a taunt against Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), amid his ongoing feud with the president over the possible deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago to curb violent crime.
And clearly, it worked. Pritzker snapped back.
Naturally, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Chicago on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s expected crackdown on undocumented immigrants as well as the prospect of National Guard troops in their city.
Lo and behold, on Monday morning, DHS announced it had just launched “Operation Midway Blitz,” in Chicago. An agency news release stated “This ICE operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”
The operation will honor Katie Abraham, a 20-year-old woman who was killed in a January 2025 car accident caused by an illegal alien who was drunk. He was deported in 2016, but reentered the U.S. under a false identity. Abraham’s parents tell their story in the video below.
On its website, DHS lists several of “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens—including gang members, drug traffickers, kidnappers, and rapists—who were RELEASED back on to Illinois streets because of Governor Pritzker’s sanctuary policies. These criminal illegal aliens remain at large.”
Maybe ICE will find some of them this week. Let’s hope.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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