Chicago Sees 56 People Shot Over Christmas Holiday

The city saw 56 people shot, 11 fatally, from Friday to Monday.

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Chicago began 2016 with an extreme amount of gun violence—over 100 people were shot in the first 10 days of the year. It appears now that 2016 is ending the same way it began.

Agence France-Presse is reporting that there were 27 shootings on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Chicago Tribune says that 56 people were shot in total between Friday night and Monday night, and 11 were killed. Eight of the shootings had multiple victims, including one attack that killed five and injured two

The weekend pushes the city's homicide count for the year, which was over 630 after a spike around Halloween, to more than 750, the highest number in over 20 years. Last year, the total was 488.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, said that most of the violence was gang-related. "Ninety percent of those fatally wounded had gang affiliations [and] criminal histories." He added that most of the victims had been "pre-identified as being a potential suspect or victim of gun violence" by the department's "strategic subject list," a computer algorithim that ranks a subject's likelihood of being involved in gun violence.

Unsurprisingly given the time of year, Guglielmi said that most of the shootings were aimed at gang rivals who were at holiday parties. 

"While we have promising leads, this unacceptable level of gun violence demonstrates the clear and present need for policy makers to convene in January and give Chicago the gun sentencing tools against repeat offenders so that we can adequately hold people accountable," the spokesman said. 

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