Faith and community leaders held a March for Remembrance and Peace in downtown Chicago on the last day of 2021, a year filled with high levels of violence for the city.
"Through all the fireworks and all the celebrations we got to remember the more than 800 homicides in Chicago during 2021. The more than 3,700 people shot and wounded in Chicago is 2021," said Father Michael Pfleger.
Many carried pictures of young people killed in 2021, while those personally touched by the violence shared their stories and frustrations at Tribune Plaza. "My son was at a block party. My son was also a waiting to go into the academy to be a police officer. He had everything and he got killed. He got shot. He died on the street," said one Chicago woman holding a picture of her late son.
"It's been almost 2 years since I got shot and I have yet to even know what's going on with my case. Mayor, are we solving these cases? Police department, are we trying to catch these murderers? What's going on?," asked another woman who had been shot and wounded.Father Pfleger says even though many shootings happened on the South and West Sides, this is a Chicago problem.
"Those murdered or who were wounded are not numbers. They're our sons and our daughters, our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers. They had purpose, and they had destiny that were stolen from them by the epidemic of violence," said Pfleger.
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