Violent crime is plentiful in Chicago, and smart crime-fighting ideas are in short supply
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Drivers who use Interstate 57 to travel into Chicago found their morning commute disrupted in the middle of September. Police officers combed the roadway for evidence, after a female driver told them she’d been shot. (She drove herself to a nearby hospital and was treated for a non-life-threatening wound in the back.)
After having lived in Chicago for years, and with family still there, I follow the city closely, and that news caught my attention. I tweeted at Sarah Jindra, the traffic reporter for WGN-TV in Chicago, asking if a shooting-related highway shutdown was unusual.
No, she answered — at the beginning of September, she had reported on four highway shooting investigations in one week, and there were three overnight on Sept. 30 alone.
Jindra further reported that this year the Illinois State Police have responded to 185 highway shootings in Cook County, home to Chicago, compared with 128 last year and just 43 in 2018.
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