Chicago police say up to fourteen people may have been shot nine critically injured on West Side

At least nine people were shot and killed Monday night in East Garfield Park on Chicago’s west side.

The extent of the injuries and the time of the shooting are not yet known.

The shooting took place on the 2700 block of West Flournoy Avenue Chicago, police said.

A spokesman said 14 people may have been shot in the incident, including children who were trick or treating.

Monday night’s incident comes as the final blow to the dwindling image of the embattled city under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has seen crime rise to figures not seen in decades since taking office in late 2019.

The Halloween Night Attack Happened in the Garfield Park Area on the West Side of Chicago

The victims were sent to various hospitals in the city

Police could be seen standing on the sidewalk and cordoning off the street

A video was posted on local residents’ Citizen app while the incident took place on Monday

A homeowner was able to capture footage of the shooting area in East Garfield Park

Last week, Lightfoot’s office came under fire from fed up citizens after they demanded that they… receive an annual salary increase of 5 percentdespite increasing criticism of her handling of violent crime in the city, as well as its failure to deal with the historically high murder rate.

Lightfoot, who currently takes home an annual salary of $209,915, made the bold move in an ordinance that would give the mayor, city clerk and treasurer access to a pay rise each year.

If approved, the pay increase would increase the city official’s salary to $216,210 as of May 22 of next year.

Officials from both sides have criticized the recent “lawlessness” seen in the city under Lightfoot, which reached levels not seen in decades during the pandemic and has not returned to prepandemic levels since.

The progressive notoriously cut a whopping $59 million from the Chicago Police Department’s budget in 2020 during the Defund the Police protests — but abruptly reversed that policy in August 2021, amid rising crime and mass strikes by the peace officers. from the city.

The unrest was compounded by rioting by Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police supporters – both moves Lightfoot had touted during her campaign.

At the time, the city recorded its deadliest year in decades, with 797 homicides in 2021 — the most recorded since the mid-1990s. Crime, especially shootings,

Last week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed giving himself an annual pay rise to keep up with inflation. She currently raises over $200,000 a year

The City of Chicago Police Department, meanwhile, is also increasingly at odds with Lightfoot, whose advocacy of progressive policies has also placed her in the crosshairs of conservative critics across the country.

A 700-page Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity-Today bill, advocated by Lightfoot in January, fueled many criminal justice reforms in Illinois, including an end to cash bail in January.

Lightfoot has since also denounced the ‘defund the police’ movement, unveiling a new plan to – ironically – ‘pay the police back’.

It came as part of a plan to funnel $16.7 billion in federal spending to the embattled police department, increasing its annual budget from $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion.

The plan relied heavily on money from Washington to help the city dig out of a deficit that reached new heights under Lightfoot, and outlined future funding for new community programs that the mayor claimed will help the troubled city weather the ongoing pandemic​ ​while addressing the prevailing problems of firearms. violence and crime.

About a year later, there are still violent crimes across the board in Chicago, especially compared to before the pandemic — around the time Lightfoot was sworn in in May 2019.

According to the latest statistics from the Chicago Police Department, crimes are still on the rise after a spate of incidents in both 2021 and 2020.

The homicide rate is up a whopping 32 percent since 2019, with 564 homicides recorded since the start of the year — compared to the 428 seen during that period in 2019.

However, the homicide rate has fallen slightly since 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when officials recorded a record 644 homicides, a mark that was then surpassed in 2021 when there were 676 homicides.

The number was the most seen since the mid-1990s.

Since then, the homicide rate has fallen slightly by 17 percent, but robbery, robbery and general crimes have all risen sharply from last year — which was one of the worst crime rates in the city’s entire history.