6 shot while mourning gunshot victim

Shooting Practice

A 12-year-old girl was among six people shot on Wednesday night during a vigil in Chicago for a gunshot victim, local media said.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the shooting comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened federal intervention to tackle gun violence in the city.

The shooting occurred at a restaurant in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, where people were gathered to mourn the death of Jamayah Fields, 20, who was shot and killed on Monday.

A gang found out about the memorial event on social media and targeted someone who was attending, community activist Jedidiah Brown told the newspaper.

The six people shot were all being treated at local hospitals, a Chicago Police Department spokesman said.

A 16-year-old boy shot in the neck was in serious condition.

The other five were stable, including the 12-year-old girl who suffered a graze wound to her head.

No one was in custody for the shooting, the spokesman said.

Chicago, with a population of 2.7 million, registered more shootings and homicides last year than any other U.S. city, according to FBI and Chicago police data, and its murder clearance rate, a measure of solved and closed cases, is one of the country’s lowest.

Trump said on Tuesday he would “send in the Feds” to quell the “carnage” of gun violence in the city if local officials failed to curb the murder rate on their own.

A recent report shows that the U.S. city of Chicago witnessed  a sobering tally of 762 homicides, in 2016,  the most in two decades, statistics released on Sunday by the Chicago Police Department said.

The record, which was more than New York and Los Angeles combined, saw the U.S. third largest city also with 1,100 more shooting incidents than it recorded in 2015.

The numbers underlined a story of bloodshed that has put Chicago at the centre of a national dialogue about gun violence, according to AP.

The data released Sunday are staggering, even for those who followed the steady news accounts of weekends ending with dozens of shootings and monthly death tolls that had not been seen in years.

The increase in homicides compared to 2015, when 485 were reported, is the largest spike in 60 years.

Police and city officials have lamented the flood of illegal guns into the city, and the crime statistics appeared to support their claims.

(NAN)