Seven killed, dozens injured in Chicago weekend shootings

Chicago’s holiday weekend shootings revived a familiar test for city leaders: whether violence prevention efforts can blunt the kind of clustered gunfire that still breaks out even after years of declining crime. Police said at least 38 people were wounded and seven were killed from Friday evening through Sunday, with preliminary information pointing to at least two dozen shooting incidents across the city.

The violence unfolded during the Juneteenth holiday period, when families, street activity and outdoor gatherings can bring more people into harm’s way. Among the dead were a 21-year-old shot in the chest on Sunday, an 18-year-old shot in the armpit on Saturday evening and a 50-year-old shot in the chest on Friday. Chicago police also said one of the earliest and most serious episodes left at least 12 people shot after an SUV pulled up and two people inside opened fire on a crowd.

Those 12 victims included eight men and four women ages 17 to 47. They were taken to four hospitals in Chicago, underscoring how quickly a single burst of gunfire can strain multiple emergency rooms and scatter trauma care across the city.

The weekend toll lands in sharp contrast to the broader direction of crime in Chicago. City officials have said 2025 was one of the safest years in Chicago since the mid-1960s, and the city finished last year with the lowest number of murders in 60 years, 416, down nearly half from the 805 murders recorded at the 2021 pandemic peak. Chicago police data have also shown only a slight uptick in shooting incidents compared with the first half of last year, even as violent crime has generally fallen in recent years.

That gap between long-term progress and short-term violence is what makes holiday weekends so politically fraught. On Sunday, President Donald Trump renewed his call for military intervention in Chicago in a Truth Social post, saying Governor J.B. Pritzker should call him for help and claiming he could make Chicago safe quickly. The episode is likely to sharpen scrutiny on how city and state officials are trying to prevent the next burst of shootings, particularly as summer brings more of the outdoor conditions that can turn a single argument, confrontation or drive-by into a citywide emergency.