In Chicago, 4 dead, at least 53 injured in shootings over Memorial Day weekend

(Image credit: Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

published 31 May 2016

It was a violent Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, with four people killed and at least 53 wounded in shootings across the city.

The murder victims include a 25-year-old man who was shot while sitting in a parked car in front of his mother's house; a 27-year-old man shot while sitting in a car with his fiancée (she grabbed a gun and fired warning shots in the air, and was charged with a felony); a 25-year-old man shot by a man he was arguing with inside a gas station; and Veronica Lopez, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed while riding in a car with two older men police say are known gang members. Her mother, Diana Mercado, told the Chicago Tribune she planned to move with her daughter to Florida in a year because of the violence, but "now they took my baby."

At least 60 people have been shot and killed so far this month, and shootings are up more than 50 percent this year. Police say the violence can be attributed to gangs, too many guns, and weak gun law enforcement, the Tribune reports. Although eight fewer people were killed this year compared to last Memorial Day weekend, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department will "never say it's good until we can go an entire Memorial Day weekend without a single shot being fired."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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