Deadly surge in U.S. gun violence brings inequities of the pandemic, police violence and firearms laws into sharp focus


JAN 04, 2022 

A first responder in Chicago leaves the scene where two women were shot this past Christmas morning.

Chicago had more homicides in 2021 than any year since 1996.Cheney Orr/Reuters.

On the evening of July 7, Miles Thompson left his home in a northern suburb of Chicago to visit his father in the city.

In 2020, homicides rose 30 per cent countrywide.

The U.S.’s homicide rate – 7.5 per 100,000 people – is nearly four times Canada’s rate, more than six times Britain’s and 25 times that of Japan.

Anderson, president of Thrive Chicago, a group that designs programs to help disadvantaged youth across the city, her stepson’s killing and the wave of shootings of which it is part are wakeup calls to a country that has for too long avoided addressing the root causes of gun violence.

Firearm-related homicides.

per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides.

per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

It logged 90 homicides in 2021, its worst-ever tally.

“We have an obligation to keep people safe on a day-to-day basis,” says Ted Wheeler, the city’s mayor.

In 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd ignited the largest national racial-justice protests since the Civil Rights movement – including months of demonstrations in Portland’s central square – the city cut its police budget by US$15-million.

It has put US$5.2-million more into the police budget.

“The short-term problem has been a lack of resources and personnel,” says Sergeant Kevin Allen, a police spokesman, who cited a decision in 2020 to disband a specialized gun violence team.

He says people “are much more emboldened to carry guns.

They know it’s less likely they’re going to get stopped.”.

Lamar Winston, who runs an inner-city basketball program, says the lack of law enforcement has seen people taking matters into their own hands.

So it’s every man for themselves,” he says.

In Chicago, there is scant evidence that simply flooding the streets with police is going to solve anything.

In 2021, Chicago had 797 homicides, compared with 485 in New York City, which has more than three times the population.

Toronto, which is slightly more populous than Chicago, had 404 total shootings in 2021

We’ve already tried that,” says Curtis Amir Toler, director of outreach at Chicago Create Real Economic Destiny (CRED), a group working to end gun violence by helping men in marginalized communities find work in the legal economy.

A community member watches police at the scene of a deadly shooting in Chicago this past Dec.

Other people have spent years going to school for this.

It makes no sense,” he says.

Shutting down schools, recreation activities and anti-violence programs caused at-risk youth to get involved with gangs, he says.

But he argues the necessary social spending shouldn’t be taken out of the police budget.

“One of the richest cities in the richest country in the world is being told ‘You have to choose between safety and jobs,’ and I beg to differ that that’s a choice that has to be made,” he says.

“If you pull the police out now, there’s going to be bloodshed, and who’s going to suffer from that.

It’s going to be people living in these Black and brown communities.”.

Shani Buggs, a gun violence expert at the University of California Davis, says researchers are still gathering data and have not reached definitive conclusions explaining the spike in violence these past two years.

Buggs says, is likely a combination of police holding back and an increased mistrust of officers by communities subject to brutality.

We have also seen evidence that when these incidents happen, police engage the community less.

If people believe there is no accountability for what’s being done to them and their families, people will take matters into their own hands,” she says.

“High rates of police aren’t necessarily stopping the violence,” she says.

It’s dangerous out there,” says Mr. Toler, the anti-violence outreach worker, says guns are far more ubiquitous than when he was leading a street gang decades ago

“We’re seeing guns and ammunition that I haven’t seen in my lifetime,” he says at a Chicago CRED outreach centre in a strip plaza on the South Side

Some guys have never seen the skyline downtown,” says Terrance Henderson, a 38-year-old Chicago CRED outreach worker

Marshall, who associated with Chicago gangs as a teen, was ultimately caught with his gun by police

While serving a sentence of house arrest last year, he joined READI Chicago, a program that provides a mix of cognitive behavioural therapy and job training for people trying to escape violence

“We need to be able to have more staff, to be more in the community to get people out,” says Toronto Brooks, 56, a READI outreach worker 

The sense of anger is palpable, says Arthur Hayes Jr., a Portland gang member who now eschews violence

We’re not fighting,” he says

“Many people are having mental-health crises,” he says

Answers have been similarly elusive in the shooting death of Miles Thompson, the 18-year-old killed in Chicago

But from her work with disadvantaged young people

And reaching people like them is exactly what she aims to do through her work at Thrive Chicago

It takes resources and patience, she says, but the only way out of this epidemic of violence is fixing the problems that cause people to take up arms in the first place

“As a nation, we have to understand that we’re going to pay for it one way or the other

Either we’re going to invest on the front end, or we’re going to pay on the back end,” she says

MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION; BUREAU OF ALCOHOL TOBACCO FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES; U.S.