Weekend shooting in Chicago leaves 11 dead

The U.S. city of Chicago has just seen one of the most violent weekends this year, with at least 74 people being shot, 11 of them fatally.

Between 3 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday morning local time, 11 people were killed and 63 others were wounded, according to Chicago Tribune, which compiled gun-related violence data for years.

Most of the shootings took place in the troubled south and west sides. The ages of victims spanned from 11 to 62 years old.

Chicago police chief of patrol Fred Waller blamed the violence on street gang members who shot into summer crowds at night.

Chicago is in many ways a microcosm of a national epidemic. The gun homicide rate in the United States is nearly 20 times higher than any other industrialized nation.

Since 2013, the Chicago Police Department has recovered nearly 7,000 "crime guns" each year, according to a Gun Trace 2017 report released by the city.

Still, with a total of some 1,700 people being shot so far, the situation was relatively better than the last two years at this time when violence hit record levels in the third biggest U.S. city.

Local police recently made some progress in curbing the violence, by using crime-fighting technology, hiring more officers and reinvigorating community policing efforts.

However, a large group of demonstrators shut down one of the busiest roads in Chicago on Thursday to deliver an anti-violence message and voiced their disappointment at the security situation.