Violence showed its ugly face in Chicago, IL, as shootings left at least seven people dead and 52 others wounded.
The police took stats starting at 5 PM on Friday and ending at 5 AM on Tuesday.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported nine dead, NBC Chicago counted eight, and I saw another had seven.
Sheesh. We know the city had three mass shootings, too:
Around 11:10 p.m. Saturday, a group of people were standing in the 3500 block of South State Street when a vehicle drove by and someone inside opened fire, Chicago police said. Seven people between the ages of 28 and 32 were wounded and taken to various hospitals in good condition.Hours later, in the second mass shooting of the weekend, multiple shooters opened fire on a group in the 2700 block of West Haddon Avenue, police said. All four victims, between the ages of 26 and 39, were listed in good condition.The third mass shooting happened early Monday morning in the 3600 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue. The five victims, ranging in age from 17 to 33, were listed in good to critical condition at different hospitals.
President Donald Trump has threatened to send in the National Guard to Chicago.
NBC Chicago reporter Mary Ann Ahern confronted Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker with the stats during a morning walk along Lake Michigan.
As Pritzker labored to make the walk, he literally became the “But Trump!” meme.
“Look, big cities have crime,” said Pritzker. “There’s no doubt about it, but let’s just pay attention to what President Trump is doing…he’s overlooking red states that have much higher crime rates.”
As you can see, Pritzker tried to deflect, much like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Trump is targeting cities, not states.
Guess what. Democrats run the majority of the big cities in those red states. Look at St. Louis in Missouri.
Trump has not backed down. He reiterated his intention to deploy the National Guard today, noting the improvements in D.C. since he sent in additional help for the local police.
Trump said:
Well, we’re going in, I didn’t say when we’re going in, when you lose. Look, I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation when we lose, when 20 people are killed over the last two and a half weeks, and 75 are shot with bullets.So let me tell you a little story about a place called DC, District of Columbia, right here where we are. It’s now a safe zone. We have no crime. We have, it’s in such great shape. You can go and actually walk with your children, your wife, your husband, you can walk right down the middle of the street. You’re not going to be shot, Peter [Doocy], you’re safe. Everyone likes you anyway. They probably wouldn’t do it but, but it’s so dangerous.And there are people in this audience that have you suffered greatly. There are people in this audience that have been mugged and hurt badly, and they don’t want to talk about it. Maybe you were very brave in talking about it. You made quite an impression, and a lot of people, I appreciate it, but there were other people in this room that have been hurt very badly just walking down the street in DC, Washington.DC is a safe zone right now. It’s a safe city. The restaurants are open. They’re booming. You can’t get a restaurant. New restaurants are announcing that they’re going to be open. This took place in 12 days. Now it’s 15 days. But three days ago, it became what’s known as a safe zone. It’s a safe city. And this city was really bad, really, really bad.We took 1600 people out hard core criminals that will not be coming back anytime soon, and we’re very proud of it, you know, to have our nation’s capital lose every week. You know, it’s like years, many years, where every single week somebody was killed for many, many, many consecutive weeks. This went on for years, and then we had last week, it was announced that nobody was killed last week, and I made that announcement in front of a very distinguished leader of a country, and I’m saying proudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, nobody was killed in Washington, DC this week.” He looked at me like, “What’s that? What’s that all about?” I say, “Yeah, we have a little bit of a crime problem, and we don’t have a crime problem in Washington anymore, and the mayor has been very helpful, and the police commission has been very helpful, and it’s been a great team.”And I would love to have Governor Pritzker call me. I’d gain respect for him, and say, “We do have a problem, and we’d love you to send in the troops, because you know what the people, they have to be protected.”I saw today on one of your networks, not a friendly network, exact, really the opposite, I would say, very unfriendly network. And they interviewed about 12 people on this morning. Most of them were African American, who were black. And they were saying, “Please, please, please, let the President send it.” These were people from Chicago. “Please. We need help. We need help. We can’t walk outside. We’re petrified.”If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it now. We’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country, and that includes Baltimore. I saw where Governor [Wes] Moore was asking me to take a walk down the street of Baltimore. Well, Baltimore is a very unsafe place. It’s rated number four in the country, one of the worst, one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the world. But, you know, we took care.This was a beautiful thing that happened in Washington, because we showed, we showed that it could be done. And this wasn’t just sending big, strong guys, and they are big and they are strong. You know, we had a great decision from the Supreme Court that had to do with sort of talent. It had to do with, you are put down based on merit. We you can hire based on merit. So merit for a soldier or for a policeman is strong, physically fit something you know, having a certain ability, not a person that is woke and got the job through woke but wasn’t strong enough to lift a gun out of the holster, et cetera, et cetera. No, I looked at the police.As you know, last week I went over, we had a meeting with there had to be 300 people, and they were all very impressive looking. And when the bad guys see them, they’re not going to do a thing. And so I’m very proud of Washington. It serves as a template, and we’re going to do it elsewhere, but Chicago is certainly going to be high.I would love to have him call. I would love the governor of Illinois, I’d be honored to take his call. All he has to do is say, “Sir, we need help. It’s out of control, and everyone knows it is.” He’s not kidding. Anyone, I would love to have, I would say Governor Moore call, because I watched him over the weekend trying to explain that Baltimore, what they need is housing. No, they don’t need housing. They need to get rid of the criminals.These are hard core criminals. You know, we took many people off the streets of Washington, DC. They’re hardcore. They’re not going to be good in 10 years, in 20 years, in two years, they’re going to be criminals. They’re going to be, they were born to be criminals. Frankly, they were born to be criminals, and they’re tough and mean and they’ll cut your throat, and they won’t even think about it the next day. They won’t even remember that they did it. And we’re not going to have those people.Washington, DC, is now a safe zone. It’s a safe place. And you can walk Katie, you can walk right down the street with, by the way, one of the biggest human beings I’ve ever seen, which is her husband, who was, he was a football player for like, 11 years in the NFL. He’s a big person, but big doesn’t mean anything when they have guns and when they have knives and everything else that they have, right?But you can walk right down the street, even by yourself, and you’re totally safe Washington, DC is a great thing.
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