Up to 13 people shot at a Chicago basketball court

[philw]

now why do I think Gang shooting the first time I head about this on the radio while I was driving about 20 mins ago  :-/

AMERICA has been rocked by another mass shooting incident, this time in Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that up to 13 people have been shot at a basketball court, including a three-year-old child.

Four people are in a serious to critical condition, including the three year old, although there have been no reported fatalities as yet.

One report on Twitter stated there were two gunmen.

The incident took place on Chicago's south side, in the Back of the Yards neighbourhood.

The paper is reporting that 60 police are on the scene.

All the victims have been transported to hospitals but are alive, deputy fire chief James Mungovan said. Police do not yet have anyone in custody.

A Chicago police spokesman did not confirm how many were shot in the park. He added it wasn't known if there were fatalities.

A total of 10 ambulances responded to the scene near Cornell Square Park around 10:15 p.m. local time and transported 11 of the victims to various hospitals, fire officials said.

Five victims were in serious condition and four others were in critical condition, according to fire officials.

A police dispatcher told AFP: "Basically, there have been no fatalities reported and there is no one in custody at this time."


Shooting scene in Chicago. Picture: Twitter
The Chicago Sun Times quoted 22-year-old local resident Julian Harris as saying that "dreadlocked gunmen in a gray sedan" fired at him at the corner of Wood and 51st street.

"They've been coming round here looking for people to shoot every night - just gang-banging stuff. It's what they do," the paper quoted Harris saying.

Another witness told the paper that he heard "at least 20 shots" and police arrived on the scene "real quick".

A third witness at the scene said three police officers carried the child to an ambulance.

"I didn't hear no sounds,'' from the child, he told the Chicago Tribune.

Francis John, 70, said she was in her apartment when the shooting occurred. She told Associated Press she went down to see what was going on and "a lot of youngsters were running scared.'' She said she was surprised by what had happened, saying she has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years.

The shooting comes as Chicago struggles to stem an epidemic of gang violence that helped push the city's murder rate up 16 percent to 506 people last year.

The Chicago Tribune reported that a total of eighteen people, including the 13 in the Cornell Park incident, were shot in the space of four hours in Chicago on Thursday night. Despite this shocking figure, there has only been one fatality so far, that of a 36-year-old man who was shot near 77th Street and Sangamon Avenue.

Back of the Yards is an industrial and residential neighborhood on Chicago's South Side and gets its name from the former Union Stock Yards, which employed thousands of European immigrants in the early 20th century.

It is still considered to be a working-class area, though now with a strong Mexican-American ethnic base, and suffers from a relatively high crime rate.

The incident comes four days after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting at Washington Navy Yard.

President Barack Obama returned to his adopted hometown earlier this year to appeal for an end to the 'senseless' gun violence ravaging Chicago as he pressed for ambitious gun control measures, which so far have been stalled in the US Congress.

More to come.


Shooting scene in Chicago. Picture: Twitter
Cornell Square Park

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Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/up-to-13-people-shot-at-a-chicago-basketball-court/story-e6frfkui-1226723648692#ixzz2fPu7PjHm

[locnload]

No Obama you idiot, why dont you appeal to an end of the senseless thug/gangsta/gehto violence that consumes the the lives of the very people that thought you were going to make the world a wonderful place for them. I think they allow this crap to go on just so they have statistics for their gun control agenda. Those are not NRA members doing this stuff, they are fans of Jazee and all the other "hip hop artist" that celebrate the culture of drive by shootings, drug dealing, and gang warfare.

Regular Americans have guns so we can protect against the thugs that are allowed to run loose among us. Next time someone talks about the high rate of "gun violence" in the U.S., point out to them that if you remove Chicago, Detroit, Philly, DC, and New Orleans, all long term liberal strongholds from the equation, the US has one of the lowest "gun violence" rates in the world. 

[tombogan03884]

The only thing news worthy about this is that it happened mid week .
They have been averaging that many a night on weekends,over 40 each for the last 2 weekends.