Absolutely Ridiculous: 26 Total People Shot This Past Weekend In Chicago

Four men are dead among the at least 26 shot throughout Chicago since Friday, capping off a violent weekend that culminated with the warmest day of the year so far.  As temperatures crept toward 70 degrees Sunday afternoon, DNAinfo Chicago reports five people were shot, including a 17-year-old boy injured in the 1500 block of South Millard Avenue.  The Sunday afternoon shootings pushed the number of injured and dead to 26 by DNAinfo's count — which included reports of gunshot victims who sought treatment at area hospitals independent of a crime scene.

The fatal shootings started Friday, where 33-year-old Kevin Sanders was killed in the South Chicago neighborhood, according to NBC Chicago. Police News Affairs say Sanders was found shot multiple times in the torso about 11:10 p.m. in the 8700 block of South Burley Avenue.


Later that night, an angry crowd of about 100 residents from the apartment complex where Sanders was killed surrounded the front door of a building where the alleged shooter had holed up. The Tribune described the shocking scene, where Sanders' alleged killer had reportedly been shot in retaliation. The suspect was taken in to police custody.  Nineteen-year-old Jonathan Santiago was the first fatality Saturday, after police say he was shot and killed around 2:45 a.m. in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, according to the Sun-Times.  Just before 9 a.m. Saturday morning, Miguel Cancel, 19, was fatally shot in his vehicle in the 4200 block of West Irving Park Road in a shooting that also wounded two other passengers.  Larry Randle, 28, was fatally shot in the back 1200 block of West 97th Street around 1 p.m. that same afternoon. According to DNAinfo Chicago, Randle was killed near his home in the 1200 block of West 97th Street after police say two gunmen emerged from a light-colored vehicle and fired on him.  On Sunday, roughly 30 minutes apart, a pair of shootings on the South Side left four more in critical condition.

"I never seen nothing like this in my life. I never grew up around this," Lora Quarles, a neighbor near the shooting in the 7400 block of South Champlain Avenue in Grand Crossing. Quarles, who recently moved to the area, told DNAinfo, "We were just talking, not expecting shots to go off."

Garrett Evans, a South Side Chicago native and survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre told Fox, "We need a background check. That's the reason I was shot, there was no background check, the guy who shot us had a history of mental illness and since he wasn't red-flagged he was able to buy a gun off the internet."