In 2013, Chicago newspapers and television stations kept a deadly count, listing those slain each day, most by gun violence. One of the most noted incidents occurred early in the year when Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was shot and killed about a week after performing at inauguration events in Washington, D.C., with her high school band. Two young men were charged with opening fire on Pendleton and a group of friends standing in a park about a mile from President Obama’s Chicago home.
After the shooting, her father, Nathaniel Pendleton, grieved before throngs of reporters at a news conference: “They took the light of my life. This guy, the gunman, man, you took the light of my life.”
The city’s gun violence has also deeply touched the life of Shirley Chambers. Over a nearly 20-year span, she lost all four of her children to shootings. The last one, her 33-year-old son, Ronnie Chambers, had said the murders of his three siblings made him decide to change his life. He was killed this year.
“It’s too much out of control now. They’ve got to get stiffer penalties for these guys,” said Chambers. “They go out here and murder people for no reason.”
In September, a shooting in a Chicago park left more than a dozen people wounded, including a 3-year-old boy. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says in that shooting, assault-style weapons were used.
“Illegal guns. Illegal guns. Illegal guns drive violence. And military-type weapons like the one we believe to have been used in this shooting belong on a battlefield — not on a street or in a corner or in a park,” McCarthy says.
In 2013, at least 412 Chicagoans lost their lives violently — about 100 fewer than a year ago. That’s more than those murdered in New York, and more than Los Angeles. But a Yale University analysis says that despite Chicago’s grim numbers, the city’s crime rate is not exceptional when compared with other large cities. It ranks Chicago 19th, with violent crime levels similar to those of Houston or Minneapolis, and half that of Detroit or St. Louis.
The study, which looks at Chicago’s crime levels over nearly 50 years, says the city is on track to have the lowest crime rate since 1972 and the lowest murder rate in 45 years. McCarthy says it’s not victory, but it is real progress.
“We’re putting additional officers in high-crime areas through Operation Impact. We’re using intelligence to prevent retaliatory gang shootings. We’re moving officers from administrative positions back into the streets. And we’re partnering closely with the community,” McCarthy says.
In a city of neighborhoods, though, crime rates are not equal, and many of the shootings here are gang-related in the city’s South and West sides.
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