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The weather has taken a turn for the better in the past couple of days and most people have been enjoying the sun but not residents on the Southside of Chicago. In just a matter of two days a total of 41 people have been shot, which includes 4 deaths, in 31 different incidents.

“Between March 31st and 2 a.m. this morning — in 50 hours– 41 people have been shot in 31 incidents, including four homicides,” Chicago police Supt. Jody Weis said during a news conference Friday. Just four blocks from where members of the media were assembled , a man in his 20s was shot in the head inside his vehicle.

Some of the chaos overnight was caught on camera by videojournalist Ken Herzlich. Police had responded to the shooting of four people near 66th St. and Marshfield Ave., apparently an extension of gang violence. Herzlich recorded police scrambling for cover as gunshots rang out nearby.

“I was amazed,” said Herzlich. “I couldn’t believe that somebody would have the audacity to do that given the presence of the amount of police officers that were there at the time.”

The shots were fired into a crowd. A woman suffered a graze wound to the head, and a man was hit in the lower back. Neither was seriously injured.

Residents say, unfortunately, similar incidents –while tragic– are neither shocking, nor surprising, not in Englewood. “It’s something you come to expect around here. So, on a hot day, don’t get too far from your house so when the shots start, you can run. Really. Always, around here, somebody is going to want revenge,” a neighbor said.

At the Friday news conference, Weis outlined a number of strategies to combat the violence, including an immediate increase of uniformed officers on the streets in ‘ hot spots’ as part of a saturation policy.

Weis also said police are going to target illegal parties with renewed force because many of them result in violence.

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