CHICAGO — It was a violent weekend in Chicago in which more than 30 people were wounded and 11 were killed in shootings, including a pregnant woman and two people who live on the same block.
42-year-old Catherine Barnett was shot around 8:20 p.m. Sunday in the the 6000 block of South Richmond St in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
Nine miles away, one of her neighbors, 41-year-old Jessee Bennett was shot in the face at 3:00 a.m. sSnday after getting into a fight with another man in South Shore.
Police are not saying if the two shootings are connected.
At 4:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon 24-year-old Juan Bahena became the 500th person to die in a homicide in Chicago since the first of the year.
Police say he was sitting in a car when someone in a tan minivan opened fire and shot him in the neck in the 2400 block of South Western on the Far South Side.
When it comes to tracking murders, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Police Dept vary a bit on their numbers. As of this weekend, the Tribune reports 500 homicides total, CPS says there have been 486.
Police stats from this time last year showed 52 murders, so we are down about 7 percent.
When tracking homicides, the Tribune counts all murders, including cases considered justifiable.
CPD does not include those types of cases, fatal police shootings or fatal shootings that happen on expressways.
Total shootings are also down about 11 percent.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Sunday that nearly 100 new Chicago police officers have hit the streets throughout the city. Nearly two dozen will be stationed in Englewood on the South Side.
This is part of the city’s two year plan to add an additional one thousand officers to the force.
So far this year Chicago police have seized more than 5,000 guns from the streets this year.