By Madeline Buckley
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Chicago has surpassed 600 homicides for the second year in a row and for only the third time since 2003, according to data kept by the Tribune.
As of early Monday, the city has recorded at least 609 homicides. That trails the 711 homicides this time last year but far exceeds previous years. In 2015, the city had recorded 443 homicides by the weekend of Nov. 22. In 2014, it was 400.
Like homicides, shootings are also markedly down from last year but up by hundreds compared to previous years. At least 3,267 people have been shot in Chicago this year, compared to 3,937 this time last year. In 2015, the number so far was 2,288 and in 2014, 1,999.
This weekend saw 13 people shot in the city, including a 14-year-old boy who was seriously injured.
The boy was walking on Sunday morning in the 2500 block of North Lotus Avenue in the Cragin neighborhood on the Northwest Side when someone shot at him from a vehicle, hitting him in the chest.
He was one of four teens shot over the weekend.
From Friday afternoon to early Monday, one man was fatally shot in what police said was an accident. Anthony Collins, 30, accidentally shot himself Sunday in the 1600 block of North Mango Avenue in the the North Austin neighborhood on the West Side.
The weekend’s latest gun attack was a double shooting in the West Side’s South Austin neighborhood around 3:10 a.m. Monday. Two men were shot in a residence in the 5000 block of West Fulton Street when the assailants entered the home and fired at them, police said.
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