Mayor Lightfoot’s Chicago: 1-Year-Old Shot and Killed, Mother Injured from Drive By Shooting

Chicago is known for its gun violence.

However, cases of gun violence have appeared to spike ever since civil unrest spread across the city.

Local CBS Chicago News confirms the tragic murder of this 1 year old boy:

A 20-month-old boy was killed, and his mother was grazed by a bullet, when they were shot while driving home from the laundromat Saturday afternoon in the Englewood neighborhood.

Chicago Police Chief of Operations Fred Waller said, shortly after 2 p.m., the boys’ mother was driving south on Halsted Street near 60th Street, on the way home from the laundromat, with the toddler in a child seat in the back of the car, when another car pulled up alongside them, and someone inside started shooting.

The boy was shot once in the chest, and a bullet grazed the mother’s head, according to Waller.

The mother, who is 22 years old, drove to St. Bernard Hospital, where her son was pronounced dead. She was later transferred to the University of Chicago Medical Center.

“It seems like just yesterday, it was actually last Saturday, I was in front of you all talking about a 3-year-old that was killed in the Austin community, and now here in Englewood, a 20-month-old was killed,” Waller said. “This is happening far too often. Too many times children are killed by senseless violence, and not only just children, but grown-ups also. When is this going to stop? When are we going to say enough is enough?”

Pastor Donovan Price said he consoled the boy’s mother and father as they grieved for their son.

“Today, I just want to sit on the side of the curb … like the mom was at one point. I just want to sit on the side of the curb, and shake my head, and cry,” Pastor Donovan Price said. “If you’re not mad, if you’re not outraged, if you’re not heartbroken about this, then what will you be heartbroken about, and do you have a heart?”

“It’s all bad. There’s a term ‘it’s all bad.’ Well, this, it’s all bad,” Price added. “I would like to see the silver lining, but this is all bad.”

Chicago has had some of the harshest lockdown rules since COVID-19 began spreading across the nation.

While Lightfoot has been strict when it comes to the novel coronavirus, many citizens of Chicago are saying enough is enough.

Instead of getting better, it appears that gun violence in the city continues to get worse.

Chicago top cop, David Brown, has spoken out about who he believes is behind the rising violence.

According to Brown, it's the drug dealers.

While lockdown restrictions are keeping law-abiding citizens at home, drug dealers have been breaking the law by dealing and roaming the streets.

NBC Chicago has more details:

On the heels of another violent weekend that left at least 66 people shot and more than a dozen killed, including two children, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown detailed what and who he believes is behind the rise in shootings.

"Open air drug markets are the pipeline to shootings and murders in Chicago," Brown said Monday, adding that additional difficulties due to coronavirus and low bonds for violent offenders have also played a large role.

Brown said Chicago's violence is complex, stemming from multiple issues, such as poverty and a lack of accountability for violent criminals.

"Here's what these evil murdering bastards do in the open air drug markets: they hire young kids that don't have any significant criminal history to be on these corners selling drugs for them and holding the guns and protect them until they sell their allotment of drugs and turn it back over to these evil bastards. They do that because these young people don't have significant criminal histories, and they're young so when we arrest and clear the corner they're in jail and out of jail," Brown said.

"These masterminds are not on the corner, they got these young people who are hand to mouth," Brown added. "They are there because there's no opportunity in their neighborhood. They are there because of the failures in many other social services - opportunities are just not available to them. That's why they're there, to feed their families."

According to Brown, such criminals are called "shorties."

"It's an evil methodology. It's why they're on the corner, because it protects the masterminds," Brown said. "It puts us in the position to arrest young people and put them in the pipeline to prison, which we don't want to do. That's not our point. So we're left with this mess as police officers because of poverty, because of no economic development, because of all the short comings in social services."

"These shorties are either the shooters or the victims - they are," Brown continued. "And many of them are murder-for-hire to make a little bit more money to feed your family. 'We'll pay you a little extra to go over and shoot this other gang.' And then the retaliations start. This is the complexity of Chicago's violence."

Brown called for violent offenders to be kept in jail longer.

He noted, however, that coronavirus has played a role in rising crime in Chicago, citing the virus' impact on the police force, which claimed the lives of three officers by mid-April, the release of inmates from jail due to the pandemic, and a lack of court proceedings during the state's shutdown.

In preparation for the long Fourth of July weekend, Brown said the city plans to have an additional 1,200 officers from Thursday through Sunday.

"Our endgame is arrests. Every day we're going to be clearing the corner, but when we clear a corner, we're pleading to the court system: keep them in jail through the weekend," he said.

In total, 16 people who were killed over the weekend, including a 1-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, according to police.

Calls to "defund the police" have grown louder in the wake of George Floyd's death.

However, Chicago is proof that the police are necessary in order to maintain peace and protect innocent civilians.

This November, Republicans will unite behind Trump to support a land of "law and order."

Democrats, on the other hand, appear to want to appease the radical mob.

Democratic cities like Chicago are a preview of what's to come if we don't continue supporting President Trump and leaders who respect law enforcement!