Chiraq: 7 dead and at least 15 wounded over Mother's Day weekend

Old Marathon Pundit home
in Fernwood

Murder didn't take a holiday over Mother's Day weekend. Seven people were murdered and at least 15 others were wounded in Chicago.

Not all Chiraq murders involve guns. On Friday night an 18-year-old woman, the daughter of a Chicago Police officer, was killed after being repeatedly rammed into a tree by woman driving a Jeep Liberty in Morgan Park on the Southwest Side. When the abandoned Jeep was found about a mile away there was a child in the back seat. A suspect is being held for murder.

Of those six other murders, two of them occurred in my old neighborhood of Fernwood on the Far South Side. One of those happened just two blocks from my old home. Two men, best friends, were killed in the while driving in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side. As they tried to escape the shooting, they struck a man in a wheelchair. That man's injuries are said not to be life-threatening. There were two other South Side fatal shootings over the weekend, one in Englewood and the other in Woodlawn.

At least some Chicagoans were in the Mother's Day spirit, sort of. Cook County Jail was on lockdown because not enough guards showed up to work on Sunday. They either called in sick or invoked the family leave act.

That's enough of what Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls "Chicago values" for now.