Chicago funeral shootout: 14 injured, hospitalized

Steph Deschamps / July 22, 2020

Fourteen people were injured Tuesday in a funeral shooting in Chicago, police said, as Donald Trump threatens to send federal agents to some Democrat-ruled cities amid a spike in crime.

At around 6.30 p.m. local time, a car "started shooting at funeral attendees," who in turn "exchanged gunfire with the vehicle," Eric Carter, an official with the Chicago Police Department, told reporters. The car then crashed and its occupants were able to escape, the officer said.

Fourteen people were injured and hospitalized, he added, without being able to specify the degree of seriousness of their injuries. One person is being questioned by police in connection with the shooting, he said.

This new episode in a city where violence is endemic in certain neighborhoods comes as the president called the situation "worse than in Afghanistan", a country ravaged by decades of war.

The Republican threatened to send federal law enforcement agencies to several major Democrat-ruled cities, including Chicago and New York, after controversial initial deployments to Portland, in the northwest. "We are not going to let down New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore," he said, accusing elected officials in these big cities of being "radical left. »

The Democratic mayors of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta and the federal capital Washington in response sent a letter to the Minister of Justice to oppose the "unilateral deployment" of federal forces in their cities.