It was the first warm weekend in Chicago, and just as feared, violence spiked, with 24 shootings across the city and five murders, police said.
The count began Friday at 6 p.m. and ran though Sunday.
In one incident, two children were among several people injured at a baby shower, Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. The children were in stable condition midday Monday.
“We know that two men in dark clothing approached the family gathering which we believe was a baby shower and opened fire,” Guglielmi said.
“The shooters fled the area on foot,” he added. “Cooperation has been very limited with detectives, and based on victim profiles we suspect this could have been a possible retaliatory shooting from an earlier incident that stemmed from an ongoing gang conflict in that neighborhood.”
Mayor-elect warns of ‘summer violence season’
In the same time frame last year, there were 18 shootings and four murders, police spokesman Michael Carroll said.
While many candidates in Chicago’s mayoral election have called for Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson’s badge, Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot promised a more patient approach, predicting warmer weather would again usher more violence into the city.
“We’re going to be heading soon into the summer violence season,” she told CNN. “After that’s over, we’ll evaluate at that point, but I’m going to be working closely with the superintendent and with his executive team to make sure that we keep our neighborhoods safe.”
CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
