With more than 100 people shot, of whom 19 were killed, over the four-day July Fourth holiday, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Police Superintendent Larry Snelling asked for community help during a press conference held on Monday, July 8. The top cop vowed to find and arrest those responsible for killing mothers and children in particular, and to provide emergency resources for those affected by gun violence, which the mayor equated to losing a “piece of the soul” from Chicago.
“I am heartbroken over the 100 shot and 19 killed. These are not just numbers on pages. These are fellow Chicagoans who were murdered—19 families whose lives have been altered,” Mayor Johnson said during the press event held at Chicago Police Department headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave.
As a father raising a family of three including two boys, ages 12 and 16, Mayor Johnson said this gun violence “is deeply personal,” and that he and his family have had several encounters with gun violence at their Austin home.
“It is no secret that people know where I live,” he said, noting that Austin has been neglected for decades. Johnson shared several instances where he said gunshots pierced the walls of his house and front porch, forcing he and his wife to dive to the floor crawling to their children’s bedrooms and hoping that they would not be tomorrow’s headlines.
“I am so tired of losing Black boys in the city. I never want the pain of thinking of burying one of them,” Johnson said of his sons.
Mayor Johnson said, “Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time. We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President Johnson, and we ended up with Richard Nixon.”
However, later, Johnson got some pushback from Jim Byron, president/CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, who sent a message to Fox News Digital saying,
“Richard Nixon was a champion of Civil Rights as Vice President and as President. The record is clear.”
Both Superintendent Snelling and Mayor Johnson voiced outrage over the shooting of eight people in the 7100 block of South Woodlawn Avenue, where an 8-year-old boy died after being shot, along with two women, after two gunmen entered their home around 6 a.m. on July 4.
Calling their acts “brazen,” Snelling said it is hard to imagine anyone entering a home, guns drawn and firing when women and children were present. Snelling said a one-year-old child was unhurt but traumatized over the shooting incident.
As a result of this and another mass shooting on July 5 in the 1300 block of West Hastings in which eight people were hurt, Snelling’s Department offered a free emergency assistance center to families affected by gun violence. The center, located in Fosco Park at 1312 S Racine, was opened on July 9, from 3:30 to 7 p.m. While the center was set up for those impacted by the Hastings shootings, other crime victims, including domestic violence victims, were seen free of charge.
Referring to children being shot, Snelling said someone knows who these shooters are. He urged people to use the CPDTIP.com anonymous tip line. He urged the community to “step up” and help police apprehend the shooters.
But he said their focus is to bring a level of justice to the families of gun violence.
“We cannot bring back these children,” said Snelling. “We need people to start coming forward, take responsibility. Help us, help you. We want to take these people off the streets.” He vowed to “push the envelope” in arresting the shooters and to work hard to keep the city safe.
Gun violence, Johnson said, happens when there are generations of disinvestment and deep disenfranchisement in the exact communities where so much of the violence is taking place. “This is enough,” the mayor said. “When this reckless violence ravages across this city at this magnitude, we are losing a piece of the soul of Chicago,” he said, admitting it deeply pains him to say that.
Johnson said the shooters made a choice to kill, the choice to kill women…children, the elderly. “I am here to say emphatically that we’ve had enough of it,” vowing to bring swift justice and at least a piece of justice for families impacted by gun violence.
The mayor said he has reached out to the federal government to help end the shootings and to provide the same resources that Highland Park received when seven people were killed at a mass shooting on July Fourth in 2022.
“Chicago can no longer wait any longer,” said Johnson calling on the entire city and all governmental agencies to “stop this vicious cycle of gun violence.”
Like Snelling, the mayor said there will be consequences for the shooters’ actions. Snelling said he is going after those shooters vowing to arrest them and keep them off the street, so they won’t “re-offend” and leave yet another trail of broken hearts, families and communities.
When asked the results of his recently announced summer safety plan and if it is working, Johnson said, “We have to double down and get these guns off the streets. This has to stop.” Right now, Johnson said the city’s streets are filled with illegal guns.
