At least 26 people, including a 3-year-old boy, were shot over another hot weekend in Chicago, nine of them fatally.
The 3-year-old child was shot while walking with his parents in the 700 block of West 120th Street around 11:30 p.m. Saturday when a man approached the family and opened fire, the Associated Press. The boy's injury was not life-threatening.
The same cannot be said for Jamel Shepard, 35, who was shot in the chest just after noon Saturday while sitting on the porch outside his family's home in the 4900 block of West Washington Boulevard in the city's Austin neighborhood, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Shepard was a paraplegic due to a shooting he survived two decades ago.
A second man -- Darnell Walker, 55 -- was fatally shot during the same incident Saturday, NBC Chicago reports.
Also among those killed by gunfire over the weekend in Chicago was a 17-year-old boy who was shot around 10:15 p.m. Sunday in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The shootings took place the same weekend that a 26-year-old alleged gang member was charged in the slaying of a 7-year-old girl last week. Jerrell Dorsey was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm in the shooting death of Heaven Sutton. Dorsey was ordered held without bond Sunday.
As of Monday mornings, no arrests have been made in the weekend shootings.
As The Daily Beast noted in a Monday column, Chicago's murder rate is in the midst of a surge not seen in the city since 2003. The unrelenting gun violence prompted the city, last week, to launch a pilot partnership with anti-violence group CeaseFire.