The largest and most well-known shooting over the holiday weekend was the assault at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade, but it was by no means the only one.
On Monday, there were two mass shootings in the Chicago area alone. Five people were hurt in a shooting on Chicago’s South Side less than 12 hours earlier.
The Highland Park shooting was notable for its scope (at least thirty-two people were hurt), severity (at least six people were killed), and place—a affluent suburb that does not frequently experience such violence. But it fit into a larger pattern: the brutal pervasiveness of gun violence in a country where there are more guns than people.
According to NBC Chicago, at least 57 people had been shot in Chicago over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, nine of whom had died. The cost associated with the Highland Park shooting outside of the city was not included in that.
Five people were shot around midnight on Monday in Parkway Gardens, a housing complex in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, where the median household income is less than $30,000 and more than 90% of the population is Black. Ten hours later, a gunman opened fire at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, where the median household income is nearly $150,000 and more than 80% of the population is white with a large Jewish community.
According to the Chicago Police Department, five victims, all male, were taken to nearby hospitals: a 17-year-old who was shot in the arm, a 19-year-old who was shot in the leg, a 24-year-old who was shot in the knee and thigh, a 30-year-old who was shot in the lower back and side, and a man of unknown age who was shot in the leg. According to the police, no one was taken into custody and the offender is still at large. Local media, including The Chicago Sun-Times, broke the initial news of the shooting.
The Gun Violence Archive has tallied more than 300 mass shootings nationwide so far this year, classifying them as incidents in which at least four people are killed or injured.
Authorities in at least a dozen other cities, besides Highland Park and Chicago, reported shootings over the weekend, the majority of them on Monday.
On Monday night in Philadelphia, two police officers were shot close to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. According to the hospital’s media officers, both officers who were taken to Jefferson University Hospital are in stable condition.
Eight people were shot on Monday in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with several of them in critical condition, according to park police.
Four people were hurt and one was killed in a shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to the police. The victims were all grown people.
As a club was closing early on Monday morning in Sacramento, California, shots were fired, resulting in the death of a 31-year-old man and the injuries of four other people.
In Richmond, Va., six people were hurt in a shooting, while four people were hurt in a shooting in Kansas City, Mo.
Over the weekend, there were also shootings reported in Mullins, South Carolina, Tacoma, Washington, Manassas, Virginia, Clinton, North Carolina, Haltom City, Texas, and New York City.
