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Two dead, 13 injured after shooting breaks out at Chicago party

Sunday, 14 March 2021 4:38 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 14 March 2021 4:45 PM ]

Police investigate the scene of a shooting on Sunday, March 14, 2021, in the Park Manor neighborhood in Chicago.(Photo via AP)

A mass shooting in Chicago’s South Side left two people dead and thirteen others injured early on Sunday, police officials say.

The incident happened when an unidentified suspect started shooting at a “pop-up party” at a business that operates as a tow company at about 4:41 a.m., according to the Chicago Police Department.

The victims were as young as 20 and as old as 44. One person died at the business, while another died at a hospital. The injured people were all hospitazlied with at least one being in critical condition.

“It was a chaotic scene when paramedics began doing triage,” Fire Department District Chief Juan Hernandez said.

Meanwhile, officer Jose Jara said in an email that for no apparent reason “one of the patrons began to shoot inside the building striking multiple people.”

Later, Jara said there was a disturbance “among several patrons and gunfire erupted striking multiple people.”

Police Superintendent David Brown gave a brief a news conference, saying, “Four guns were recovered at the scene.”

Brown also spoke of a rumor that someone left and came back and opened fire, but he said authorities were not able “to confirm that rumor at this point.”

“It’s still so early, particularly with some of the witnesses in surgery right now that we haven’t been able to talk to.”

Chicago saw a dramatic spike in the number of homicides and shootings in 2020, ending with more bloodshed than in all but one year in more than two decades, according to police statistics.

After three years of falling homicide totals, 2020 ended with 769 homicides — 274 more than the previous year and the most since the 784 homicides in 2016.

Mistrust of police major contributor of gun violence in US: Report

The United States loses around 33,000 people to gun violence every year. Additionally, more than 100,000 people are shot each year in the country at a total cost of $45 billion, according to a study by the journal Health Affairs.

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