Following another violent weekend in the city of Chicago which saw 53 people shot, and five killed, the city hit a record with 600 homicides for 2020 and hit record numbers for the number of people shot and killed in a single year. The numbers represent a dramatic increase over the past couple of months which saw a 50 percent increase from 2019.
“The CPD regularly posts statistics, about crime in the city, both week to week and year to year. A look to recent stats shows that murder has risen in the city, doubling the first week of October from the previous weeks with 15 murders, and the city is on track to hit around double the mudars compared to 2019,” Fox News notes.
The surge in violence comes as the nation saw a series of nation-wide anti-police protests spread throughout major cities around the United States along with the pressure from mostly Democrat and Liberal-led city councils who have cut funding from police department budgets.
Numerous big cities throughout the United States have made plans for future budgets to defund their police departments, however, Chicago has been debating whether or not to cut funding from its police department or to add additional resources like social workers to scenes of domestic disturbance situations, or other so-called “non-violent crime.”
While New York and Los Angeles have already started to defund its police departments in future budgets, Chicago has used other methods to take away funding by pledging to use the funding to boost social programs instead of using that money to fund the police budget.
17 of Chicago’s schools have voted to remove Chicago police from their school.
“I understand the concerns and questions that many have surrounding policing, particularly when it surrounds our youth,” Mayor Lightfoot said regarding police and Chicago’s schools. “We have heard you, and we have taken major actions to respond.”
The Chicago School board, which decides budgetary matters, decided to cut the police budget from $33 million to $15 million. School safety in Chicago is determined by the elected local school councils and is largely left up to the individual schools to decide safety policy. Just this week alone, Chicago saw 23 shot and 3 killed.
