CHICAGO — The City of Chicago saw a double digit spike in crime in the month of June, according to crime numbers released by police Wednesday.
There was a 34% increase in the number of murders over the same period, last year. There were also 45% more shootings.
Just last weekend, gun violence left more than a dozen people dead, including three children. The weekend prior, Father’s Day weekend, gun violence killed 12 people, including 3-year-old Mekhi James.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown recently announced plans to deploy 1,200 extra officers over the Fourth of July Weekend.
“This weekend … we’ll have an additional 1,200 cops every day from Thursday through Sunday,” Brown said Monday.
When asked about the violence, Mayor Lightfoot said it’s a mix of the pandemic, but also returned to an old refrain.
“That’s a complicated question,” Mayor Lightfoot said. “We have way too many guns on the streets.”
Despite the spike of violence in June, police say there was actually a 9% drop in crime over the first six months of the year.
