54 Shot, Eight Dead in Chicago Last Weekend

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown acknowledged Monday that crime is spiking in every neighborhood in the city after another bloody weekend.  Lucy Collins of CNS News reports that among the shooting victims were two teenage boys who were approached on a sidewalk at 1:00 am.  A 29 -year-old man was shot and killed while riding a Chicago Transit Authority train early Saturday.  Last weekend 48 people were shot, five fatally as the city logs 399 murders so far this year.  This comes as police complain about a policy adopted in June that prohibits officers from chasing suspects unless they can prove that they believe the suspect had committed a felony or a class A misdemeanor.   Another new policy requires officers to call their supervisor for permission to pursue a suspect in their police car.  The brother of an 18-year-old murdered last summer wrote “I can tell you that criminals love the policy shift that’s taken place over the years in Chicago, where leaders have mistaken necessary criminal justice reform with soft-on-crime policies which are endangering the lives of residents from every neighborhood and demographic.”