‘This is a war zone’: Chicago alderman rips mayor after more than 100 shot over bloody July 4th weekend

One week after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spouted nonsense about crime being on the decline in the Windy City, there was a bloodbath over the Fourth of July weekend.

Over 100 people were shot in Chicago since 5 p.m. Friday, with 16 deaths, according to WGN. Included among the carnage were six children and two police officers who came under fire while trying to disperse a crowd — the cops sustained non-life-threatening injuries and there were no arrests.

The shootings were noticeably higher than the 2020 4th of July weekend, which saw nearly 80 people shot and 15 killed, according to CBS Chicago. In 2019, the holiday weekend resulted in at least 68 people shot, five fatally. The trend speaks for itself.

Calling the city a “war zone,” Alderman Anthony Napolitano was highly critical of the mayor for her “nonsense,” and also slammed Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx, whom he said was “by far the worst in the nation.”

A former police officer, Napolitano said Chicago is “averaging over 6,000 people shot over the last 18 months,” and in response to Lightfoot’s claim that illegal guns brought in from surrounding areas are largely responsible for the gun violence, Napolitano said that’s “pure nonsense.”

“We have the strongest and the strictest gun laws in the state, if not the country,” he said, adding that areas bordering the city have “nowhere near the amount of crime we do.”


(Video: Fox News)

“We have a people problem here in Chicago and I’ve been saying this for a long time, we have zero accountability for parents in the city of Chicago,” the alderman insisted. “Nobody is raising their kids anymore, the gangs are raising them.”

Vowing to reform the criminal justice system and lower the Cook County Jail inmate population upon taking office, Foxx dismissed tens of thousands of felony cases, even murder cases. In her first three years in office, she dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, according to Fox News.

Up for reelection in November 2020, Foxx won easily by 15 points.

As for Lightfoot, she was confronted last week by Newsmax about rampant crime and the Democrat countered with a remarkable statement.

“Crime is not out of control in our city. In fact, crime is on the decline,” she claimed.

“The premise of your question, which is it’s chaos everywhere, the fact of the matter is, sir – which you also didn’t point out, but I will so we get this straight – we’re actually seeing a decline in homicides and shootings. Yes sir,” she added.

Citing data through June 14, the Chicago Tribune reported that 1,587 people have been shot this year, which is 195 more than 2020.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that at the halfway point of the year, “more people have been shot and more people have been killed in Chicago than this time last year, when violence reached levels not seen since the mid-1990s.”

The newspaper said there have been at least 336 homicides for the first six months of 2021, which is two more than at this point in 2020, adding that “last year was one of the deadliest in the city in decades, with 775 killed, a sharp spike from the 500 homicides in 2019.”

There were a total of 252 homicides in 2019.

In addition to blaming illegal guns, Lightfoot claimed at a June 28 news conference that “our criminal courts have been shut down for 15 months,” this being a reference to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m calling upon our county partners, and particularly those in the criminal courts: Open up the courts,” Lightfoot said. “People need their day in court. Justice delayed is justice denied, and you’re hurting not only those who are charged but also those in the community.”

In effect, the mayor tried to blame the courts but the Sun-Times dispelled that claim, reporting that while jury trials were suspended in Cook County, criminal courts have continued their other operations over the past 15 months, adding that jury trials started up again in March.

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