Seven year old Amari Brown was killed this weekend in Chicago alongside a brutal outbreak of gun violence that has led to nine deaths and left over 40 people injured.
Brown’s father, Antonio Brown, reported riding with his son to the hospital, speaking to him in his final moments, and waiting as doctors worked until 2 am to save Amari, but to no avail.
While this is tragic, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy sees it as the inevitable result of a whole series of shootings that have plagued the city over the past few years. Antonio Brown is himself a criminal, McCarthy holding a 20 page rap sheet at a press conference detailing Antonio Brown’s crimes as well as his relationship with the Four Corner Hustlers street gang.
“If Mr. Brown is in custody, his son is alive,” said McCarthy, who believes that the shots were intended for Antonio. For McCarthy, the problem lies both in the cities inability to effectively prosecute and detain criminals like Brown, and its inability to control gun-violence, and according to McCarthy it is not an issue of feet on the ground.
After a burst of violence on Friday, Chicago police had their shifts extended to 12 hours. However, the increased police presence did not stem the violence.
“It’s not going to stop the violence until criminals are held accountable and something is done to stem the flow of these guns into our city.” said McCarthy, commenting on increasing the number of officers on the streets.
McCarthy has long been a supporter of amendments to the current laws around gun crimes in the state of Illinois. After this last weekend’s rash of violence, politicians will be hard pressed to say that he’s wrong. Hopefully, it will lead to other career criminals like Antonio Brown being put behind bars and keep innocents like Amari Brown out of the crossfire.