The factors contributing to gun violence are many and complex: unemployment, poverty, a lack of economic reinvestment in certain neighborhoods, a struggling education system and an influx of illegal guns.
“Most of the gun violence is going to run in very high poverty areas with very little pathways or opportunities for people to get out and operate in legal economies,” Shari Runner, President and CEO of the Chicago Urban League, told CBS.
Shootings over the extra-long holiday weekend, Wednesday afternoon to Monday morning #chicago
The primary economies in those neighborhoods “are extremely high risk and associated with guns and drugs that are flooding into these communities,” she said.
Another contributing factor was the lack of rapport between residents and the Chicago Police Department, an essential component of fighting crime.
“[The relationship between the police department and many communities [in Chicago], particularly communities of color, is broken, fractured, and there’s not a significant amount of trust,” Lori Lightfoot, president of the Chicago Police Board told CBS.
A Police Accountability Task Force report in April found the department’s community policing program “significantly damaged after years of neglect.”
It also found the community’s lack of trust in the department to be justified, citing evidence that people of color, particularly African-Americans, “have had disproportionately negative experiences with the police over an extended period of time.”
Residents have complained of police stopping them without justification, verbally or physically abusing them and arrested and detained without counsel.
#Chicago cop kills teen, claims he had gun, no weapon found http://on.rt.com/7w3s
The report said the deaths of numerous men and women at the hand of police was “an important rallying cry for the community” and the release of a video showing a Chicago police officer fatally shooting teen Laquan McDonald, which was initially covered up, become the “tipping point for long-simmering community anger.”
Deadliest weekend of the year in #Chicago [VIDEO] https://youtu.be/iTTP7Ni31ao @TrinityfChavez
The Justice Department announced in December 2015 it was launching a civil pattern and practice investigation to determine whether there are “systematic violations of the Constitution or federal law by offices of the CPD.”
Article Appeared @https://www.rt.com/usa/368483-9-dead-61-injured-chicago/