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At Least 14 Mourners Shot outside Chicago Funeral Home after Service for Previous Shooting Victim

At least 14 people were shot outside a funeral home in Chicago on Tuesday night, in one of the most violent incidents the city has seen this summer. Police told reporters that gunmen began firing from inside a car at people exiting a funeral at Rhodes Funeral Services in Chicago’s Gresham neighborhood. Some attendees were …

At least 14 people were shot outside a funeral home in Chicago on Tuesday night, in one of the most violent incidents the city has seen this summer.

Police told reporters that gunmen began firing from inside a car at people exiting a funeral at Rhodes Funeral Services in Chicago’s Gresham neighborhood. Some attendees were armed and fired back at the assailants, who ran out of the car after it crashed near the funeral home.

The victims are currently being treated for various injuries at five different hospitals. The funeral was held for a 31-year-old man shot to death roughly a mile and a half away from the home last week, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“We currently have a person of interest being interviewed by our detective in the area,” First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said at a press conference. “Detectives will be conducting a canvass for the rest of this evening and early tomorrow.”

Police said they did not yet know if the shooting was gang-related.

“When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote on Twitter following the shooting. Lightfoot called on residents to aid police in their investigation, writing “We cannot give shelter to killers. People know who are responsible.”

Chicago has seen an abnormally high number of shootings over the past month and a half, with 25 people shot on Monday alone and 63 people shot over the weekend. At least 1,901 people have been shot in Chicago since the beginning of 2020, up from 1,351 over the same period in 2019.

While shootings typically increase in the city every year during the summer months, the pace of shootings has spiked amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police following the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis officers.

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