Chicago police said six men and one woman were shot in the city’s Englewood neighborhood, near 68th and Justine streets, around 11 p.m. after a fight broke out on the sidewalk and shots were fired.
The police department told Newsweek that the woman was seriously wounded, while the six men were described as being in good or fair condition. The 39-year-old female is at the University of Chicago Hospital after suffering gunshot wounds to the left arm and abdomen.
There is no one in custody at this time. Detectives are investigating the incident.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact law enforcement officials or to submit a tip anonymously online at CPDTIP.com.
The news comes as Chicago faces rising levels of gun violence.
The most recent weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department show that there has been a 50 percent increase in shooting incidents during the week of March 22 to March 28, when compared to this time last year.
Last month saw a 60 percent increase from March 2020. The number of shootings in Chicago during March was at its highest level in four years.
The latest numbers from police show that there were 233 shooting incidents and 298 shooting victims last month. Comparably, March 2020 saw 146 shootings and 175 victims, March 2019 reported 136 shootings and 165 victims and March 2018 listed 136 shootings with 151 victims.
Monday night’s shooting was not the only one that occurred in the city that day. Earlier, six people were shot—two fatally—in four other shootings.
The two men fatally were a 21-year-old, who was struck multiple times in West Pullman on the Far South Side, and 35-year-old Ricky Shipman, who was shot in the chest while sitting in a parked car outside a laundromat in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. The 21-year-old’s name has not been released by the police.
Over Easter weekend, 34 people were shot—eight fatally—in Chicago.
The rise in gun violence has also been seen in other major cities. Experts are predicting those numbers to spike due to myriad factors, including economic collapse, anxiety surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, and de-policing and reallocation of resources in major cities as a response to last summer’s protests.
“Some cities are set to outpace last year’s numbers,” Laura Cooper, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, told CNN on Sunday.