As people around the country are having conversations, inspired by the Floyd shooting, about “abolishing” the police, the city of Chicago has seen its most violent day in sixty years as one eighteen people were killed in twenty-four hours according to ABC News.
Known as one of the most gun violent cities in America, Chicago recently marked a new grim milestone with 18 homicides in a single day, officials said.
On Sunday, May 31, the Chicago Police Department responded to the most homicides in a 24-hour period, Max Kapustin, senior research director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, confirmed to ABC News.
Kapustin said the day also capped the deadliest weekend residents in the so-called Windy City have seen in 28 years. According to his lab’s data, which goes back to 1961, the previous record for the most homicides in a single day was 13 on Aug. 4, 1991.
In fact, there were so many autopsies to do on June 1 that Chief Cook County medical examiner, Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, had to call in additional pathologists to complete them all. The medical examiner’s office conducted a total of 35 autopsies on that day, including 15 gun-related homicides, a spokeswoman for the office told ABC News on Tuesday.
“This is an unprecedented amount of homicides in one day for our office,” Arunkumar said in a statement. “The most I can recall in one day since I started here in 2003 is 10.” (source)