By Anita Padilla, fox32chicago.com
An alarming statistic is emerging in Chicago. since the first of the year, 365 people have been shot in the city of Chicago.
Chicago Police report 70 of those victims have died.
Even more alarming, these recent numbers are more than double the same time period last year.
This weekend alone, shootings left six people dead and at least 18 others wounded across the city, according to Chicago Police. One of the victims was a woman shot while trying to break up a fight.
27-year-old Latania Anderson was gunned down while trying to intervene in a fight at an Austin neighborhood party on the West Side. Police say two people got into an argument about 5:25 a.m. at the party in the 300 block of South Cicero, and Anderson stepped in between the two males to break them up. But one of them shot her in the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
Those alarming numbers and brutal murders are why Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin is launching the first of three task force hearings on gun violence.
“There is no more important issue that we face as public servants than gun violence. The reason I proposed the creation of the Coordinator Position and the Task Force, is because, thus far, we have not only failed to solve the problem- we have failed to make a cooperative effort to put forth a set of solutions. So that cooperative effort- the work of crafting a single set of policy proposals to reduce the number of shootings in Chicago and Cook County begins now,” Boykin said in a press release.
The first of three “Cook County Gun Violence Task Force Public Hearings” will be held Tuesday, February 16 ar 10 a.m. in the Cook County Board Room. The meeting will feature speakers from the University of Chicago Crime Lab, local law enforcement, state and federal agencies, and the state Department of Corrections.
The meeting are designed to gather testimony and data about the economic, social, and cultural causes of gun violence in Cook County and the best methodology for reducing gun violence.
