Chiraq: 6 dead and at least 44 wounded over Memorial Day weekend

Compared to last year's bloody Memorial Day weekend, shootings were down but it was still a depressingly violent weekend in Chicago. Six people were slain and at least 50 others were wounded, while in 2016 there were the same number of fatal shootings but 71 people were wounded.

Of this weekend's homicides two were particularly abhorrent. A fifteen-year-old was killed in a drive-by shooting in North Lawndale on the West Side. In Roseland on the South Side, a disabled 20-year-old man who was legally blind was murdered while playing basketball in a park.

There were two apparent domestic killings, one in Austin on the West Side and a murder-suicide in Bronzeville on the South Side.

The other two Memorial Day weekend killings were also on the South Side, one in Englewood and the other in Washington Park.

Over the last few days 1,300 police officers were dispatched to control the violence, but 50 shootings over the holiday weekend is something the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce will not be boasting about in a press release. On the other hand, how many fewer shootings would there be if the cops could ramp up stop-and-frisk searches? Longer term, an extensive investigation of the ties between Democratic politicians and street gangs would probably ease the carnage--and, wait for it--make Chicago a place people will want to live in.

Chicago is the only major city to lose population in 2015 and 2016.