The Chicago mayor today bizarrely claimed that there were no race riots in her city in 2020, and also suggested both homicides and shootings are down this year as opposed to last year, suggesting the city is making progress:
First point. There were absolutely race riots in Chicago last year after George Floyd’s death. Her denial of this is ludicrous. But also I think she’s probably playing a game of semantics, where she doesn’t call the protests ‘riots’ or something. Regardless of what you want to call them, Chicago was plagued with riots last year. At one point the mayor actually told people to with guns not to use said guns to defend themselves from rioters, but to call the police instead. Another ludicrous statement from a horrible mayor.
Secondly, when she claims the homicides and shootings are down this year over last year, she’s playing with the numbers. Here’s an article from a local Chicago news station a few days ago:
Fewer killings were reported over the first six months of 2021 in Chicago compared with the same period last year even as the number of shootings and people shot increased, according to statistics released Thursday by police.
Between Jan. 1 and Wednesday, there were 332 killings in the city — six fewer than in the first six months of 2020. Both numbers are much higher than the 246 recorded over the first half of 2019.
Chicago ended 2020 with 769 slayings. So far this year, there have been 1,515 shooting incidents and 1,880 people shot in the city. Shootings incidents and victims over the first six months of 2020 totaled 1,377 and 1,656, respectively.
In other words, the number of killings is only marginally down over last year, by only six killings. I should note that article was written before the major shooting spree that took place over the holiday weekend, so that’s probably changed since then.
But the number of shootings, where people have actually been shot, are vastly increased over last year. This year it’s 1,880 people as of July 1st and last year it was 1,656 along the same period. That’s well over 200 more people shot.
Lightfoot suggested both categories are down for the last few months, but the stats I’m giving you are more comprehensive, for the entire year, and probably tells a more accurate story than what she wants to convey.
As I suggested above Chicago had an awful holiday weekend, even compared to last year:
From Friday at 6 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. on Monday, at least 100 people have been shot, including two CPD officers and five children 13 and younger.
There were at least 18 killed.
During the same time period over the holiday last year, 87 were shot and 17 were killed.
Both homicides and shooting are up this year over this one weekend. For Lightfoot to play this down at all is despicable and very much divorced from the facts.