It’s a case of cheer and fear.
It’s the Christmas season’s most deadly couple: COVID-19 and gun violence.
The coronavirus may have claimed the lives of 3,850 Chicagoans through the middle of this past week, but the violence of the gun has now resulted in the shooting of nearly 4,000 people in Chicago.
Gun violence, notes anti-gun activist priest Michael Pfleger, has killed nearly 750 people this year so far.
Angered by these alarming stats, Sneed is told Pfleger plans to repeat his 2016 New Year’s Eve march down North Michigan Avenue, when cross-carrying protestors draped themselves with names of Chicago’s 2016 murder victims.
Only this time Pfleger will be leading protesters carrying Chicago flag replicas riddled with bullet holes and “dripping” with blood.
“We can’t just be silent over this murderous carnage in our city,” said Pfleger, who is pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, located in Auburn Gresham on the South Side, which has been devastated by violence.
“The shooting deaths are now on their way to a move upwards,” he said. “These numbers are not acceptable, must not be acceptable.”
Father Michael Pfleger, of the Faith Community of St. Sabina, Rev. Jesse Jackson (left) and State Sen. Jacqueline Collins (right) led hundreds on a march down the Magnificent Mile, carrying crosses for all those killed by Chicago violence in 2016 and to call for an end to violence in 2017, Saturday morning, Dec. 31, 2016.
Sun-Times Media
“When Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson was in office, the numbers were consistently going down monthly. Since the beginning of 2020, under an interim top cop plan, they have been on the rise!
“We seem to be ignoring this fact in the midst of the COVID pandemic, which has already tragically claimed so many lives.
“Although it’s apparent we are focused now on COVID-19, we can also walk and chew gum. We cannot ignore all these lives destroyed by violence. We can and must fight COVID and carnage at the same time.”
The march is scheduled to begin at 435 N. Michigan Ave. at the Tribune Plaza and end at Michigan Avenue’s uber-chic shopping emporium sporting boarded-up windows in the aftermath of looting following police brutality protests last summer.
Sneedlings . . .
The stork patrol: Congratulations Luka and Gina (nee Stefani) Illic on the birth of daughter, Milania Petra. Grandparents Phil and Karen and Pero and Gordana are over the moon. . . . Belated best wishes to Chicago Fire Department Battalion Chief Pat Maloney who retired on Veterans Day after 39 years of service. Perfect timing for a U.S. Marine. . . . Saturday birthdays: Alyssa Milano, 48; Criss Angel, 53; and Jake Gyllenhaal, 40. . . . Sunday birthdays: Jonah Hill, 37; Dick Wolf, 74; David Wright, 38, and happy birthday to Marc and Rick Malnati’s beloved mother, Jean, who turns 91 Wednesday.
