Chicago police reported on Monday that the weekend was the most violent gun violence in the city of the year, The Chicago Sun-Times reported. Several shootings left at least seven people dead and over three dozen injured, news reports said. Police also said an officer shot and killed a teenager on Sunday night after the teenager allegedly pointed a gun at them. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified the assailant as Michael Westley, a 15-year-old.
Westley was shot in the Englewood neighborhood. Between Friday and Sunday, at least seven people were killed and at least 46 people were shot. Chicago police were involved in three of those shootings.
"I've never known Mikey [Westley] to be involved in any gang or have any guns or anything like that," said his relative Eastley Lewis. However, police say they recovered two guns at the scene. Westley would have been a high school sophomore at TEAM Englewood this fall.
"He loved to play basketball. He loved to play football. He was good kid -- just loved to play sports," his friend Darrell Holmes told local Chicago ABC News affiliate.
The shootings took place concurrently when the police department released statistics that show 31 percent fewer murders were reported, 27 fewer shootings and 14 percent fewer overall crime incidents in 2013, compared to the same time period in 2012, the department said.
Also on early Sunday, a Chicago police officer fatally shot a man in the North Lawndale neighborhood. Officers were attempting to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation when a man got out of the car with a weapon in his waistband and fled down an alley, police said, as reported by ABC News. The officers chased him and saw him slip and fall to the ground when he reached for his weapon while trying to stand up. An officer discharged his weapon, and shot and killed him, police said.
Antowyn Johnson, a 21-year-old, died on the scene, according to the medical examiner's office.
The first homicide of the weekend happened late Friday in Austin, when McGregory Porter, 24, was shot in the eye and another man was shot in the abdomen during an altercation, authorities said. The shooting happened about 11 p.m. in the 5500 block of West Quincy Street, police said.
At least 34 other people were also wounded in shootings across the city since Friday night, police said, at least four of who were critically injured. A 19-year-old man was also shot in the right leg and a 23-year-old man was shot in the back, police and fire officials said, ABC News reported on Monday.
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