Responding to a bloodbath of violence over the weekend, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he's seeing an “uptick” in gang conflicts — and will soon provide beat cops with better information about gangs to stop retaliatory shootings, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Gangs were responsible for almost all of the 37 shootings and nine murders from Friday through Sunday, McCarthy said.
When he took over as superintendent almost a year ago, gangs represented about half the firearm violence, but now they're to blame for more than 80 percent of it, McCarthy said. “They are splintering off into smaller gang factions and it's getting more difficult for us to track and predict what's going to happen next,” he said. McCarthy said he's launching “gang audits” in each of the city's police districts. Beat cops and gang officers have been meeting over maps to chart the turf and membership of gangs in the district, McCarthy said. That information will be merged with gang intelligence from the police department's existing databases, he said. “The violence this past weekend is unacceptable to me and every law-abiding Chicago resident,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. ” Our streets belong to the families and children of our city, not to the gangs and gangbangers.