Chicago police appeal for help after more than 66 shot and 12 killed during weekend of gun violence

'This is the worst I've ever seen it ... and it might get worse'

Police in Chicago have appealed for extra help following a weekend of gang-related gun violence, during which 66 people were shot and 12 of them were killed.

The south side of the midwestern city has long a reputation for the ubiquity of gun violence, something that frequently kills innocent bystanders, among them children.

At the conclusion of the weekend of violence, police chief Fred Waller vowed that his officers would overcome the violence, but he also appealed for additional help.

“We will not be defeated,” he said at a press conference on Sunday evening. “We won’t be overrun by that small element that’s committing these reckless acts.”

He added: “We need more help from our judicial system. We need more help from our federal partners, and we are getting it.”

Reports said most of the shooting occurred on Sunday, with at least 30 people being shot between midnight and 3am. In one two-and-a-half-hour stretch, 25 people were hit in five different incidents.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” one police officer who was stationed outside a hospital told the Chicago Sun Times newspaper. “It’s hot right now. There’s a lot of tension ... and it might get worse.”

At a Monday morning news conference police announced that 66 people were shot, 12 of them fatally, between Friday at 6pm and Sunday at 11:59pm

Yet officials also said the spike in violence is not in line with the current trends in the city. Another newspaper, the Chicago Tribune reported that there had been 532 fewer shootings this year compared to 2017.

Mr Waller said shootings had decreased by 30 per cent from 2017, and murders by 25 per cent

The issue of gun violence in Chicago is inextricably linked to the city’s frequently testy politics. Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani addressed the shootings in a succession of tweets.

The former New York mayor threw his support behind Garry McCarthy, the former Chicago Police superintendent who is currently running to unseat mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has faced demands for his resignation.

Mr Giuliani told his followers that Mr McCarthy, who served as a New York Police Department official while Mr Giuliani was in office, when crime rapidly dropped in New York, would be able to help stop Chicago’s violence.

Police said gunmen targeted a block party, a gathering after a funeral, and other get-togethers on a night where thousands of people attended a downtown concert.

“Detectives are working around the clock to investigate the incidents, build a timeline of events and identify any shooter,” said Mr Waller.

“We’ll also be conducting coordinated enforcement missions to target individuals that are driving the violence in these areas and focus on where we believe retaliatory violence may occur.”

Last week, scores of protesters blocked roads and closed down streets in an anti-violence demonstration, during which people called for Mr Emanuel to quit for failing to deal with the gun violence problem.

“We have people who are committed, who are ready to get arrested,” Ira Acree, a reverend of Greater St. John Bible Church who was providing buses to transport protestors to the march, told the Tribune.

“And those who don’t, they’ll stay back. But certainly, people are going to get arrested. And we will have attorneys and people who will provide resources to bail them out.”