Chicago has just concluded one of the most violent years in its history, with a massive increase in shooting incidents and homicides, Time magazine reports.
Over the course of the year 2020, Chicago suffered 3,237 shooting incidents, Time reported on December 30, an increase of more than 50 percent from the 2,120 incidents reported in the same time frame in 2019.
The city also saw an astounding 55 percent increase in homicides during the same period.
Chicago shootings totaled 4,005 between January 1 and December 16, 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported last month.
In just one weekend, from December 26-27, 27 people were shot in Chicago, seven of them fatally.
Violence against police has been especially affected. The Chicago Sun-Times highlighted in early December that Chicago police officers had faced a three-fold increase in shootings directed at officers.
“Chicago police officers have been shot at 71 times this year, and 10 officers have been struck by bullets,” the article noted. “In the same period of 2019, officers were shot at 18 times, with three officers struck by gunfire.”
While Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot has stated she does not support the Defund the Police movement, in October, she proposed cutting $80 million from the budget of the Chicago Police Department.
The record-level violence experienced in Chicago in 2020 was replicated in other Democrat-run cities.
New York City had 1,824 shooting victims as of December 20, 2020, compared to 896 in the same period in 2019, and a 39 percent increase in homicides, leading the New York Times to report 2020 as the city’s deadliest year in “nearly a decade.”
A report from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (NCCCJ) revealed that homicides had increased by 36 percent across 28 major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia, between June and October 2020, as compared to the same period in 2019.
In 2020, Philadelphia and Charlotte saw the highest number of homicides since the 1990s, according to local news sources.
The sharp rise in shootings and homicides coincided with coronavirus lockdowns, the shuttering of businesses, and Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the country.
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