At least 29 people were shot over another violent weekend in Chicago, including five men who were killed by gun violence.
The fatal shooting victims identified as of Monday morning range in age from 21 and 30.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Denzell Williams, 21, was walking in the 100 block of North Central Avenue around 3 a.m. Sunday when a man approached and shot him multiple times in the chest.
Later Sunday, a 30-year-old man was fatally shot and a woman was wounded in an incident that led to a shootout with police around 12:45 p.m. in the 9800 block of South Merrill Avenue. Michael White later died at Advocate Trinity Hospital, the Chicago Tribune reports. Police shot the suspected gunman and took him into custody.
At 6:09 p.m., Darrius Boyd, 25, was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center after being struck in the head less than an hour before in the 8600 block of South Kingston Avenue in the city's South Chicago neighborhood, according to the Tribune. Around the same time, two other men -- aged 28 and 30 -- were killed and a 23-year-old pregnant woman was wounded in a separate shooting in the 9400 block of South Rhodes Avenue.
The woman, who was shot in the stomach and is six months pregnant, remained on life support Monday, according to police, ABC Chicago reports. The baby is expected to survive, according to the Sun-Times.
Also among those wounded over the weekend in Chicago was a 17-year-old son who was shot in the head and critically wounded during a struggle with his father over a gun, NBC Chicago reports.
Charles Johnson, 53, was charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon in the incident.
The same day that ABC launched its first broadcast of a national, three-part ABC news report on the impact of gang violence in Chicago led by veteran news anchor Diane Sawyer, Mayor Rahm Emanuel late last week commented that the city's crime-fighting strategies are working, though improving statistics on gun violence "are very little comfort when you have a mother on the phone whose child may have been shot in the leg, may have been shot in the arm or worse."
The city has seen more than 400 murders this year and its murder rate is currently more than four times New York's. Homicides in Chicago, through last month, are up 24 percent over the previous year.
Surging gun violence in Chicago also recently inspired Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to introduce a nickel tax on each bullet and $25 on each firearm sold in the county as part of her new budget proposal. The so-called bullet tax -- or "violence tax" -- is expected to generate about $1 million annually toward the county's $260 million-plus budget hole.
"The violence in Cook County is devastating and the wide availability of ammunition only exacerbates the problem," Preckwinkle said Thursday.
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