Many human activities were curtailed in America during Memorial Day weekend due to the Wuhan coronavirus. However, murder in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington D.C. weren’t among them.
In Baltimore, there were eight killings over the weekend, even though residents were under orders to stay home due to the pandemic. Four additional people were injured in the shootings.
According to police, several of the victims had previously been convicted of attempted murder. In a properly functioning justice system, these victims would have been incarcerated.
Chicago topped Baltimore. It suffered nine killings, with 27 more wounded, over the weekend. This was Chicago’s deadliest Memorial Day weekend since 2015.
Washington, D.C. got off easy. Only three people were shot to death over the weekend.
One of the killings took place on the street in Southeast D.C. where I lived for the first seven years of my life.
Also in Southeast, a 71 year-old grandmother was shot and killed while trying to stop an argument between her granddaughter and another woman. The granddaughter reportedly had been jumped by the other woman. The victim, Sheila Lucas, was also trying to get her great-granddaughter away from the dispute.
Lucas had survived diabetes and the Wuhan coronavirus, as well as a previous shooting. However, she did not survive Memorial Day weekend in locked down Washington, D.C.
So far this year, homicides in D.C. are running at about the same pace as last year, which set a decade high. D.C. has been locked down for about half of the year, but its thugs apparently regard murder as an essential activity.
I should also note the wave of paintball attacks on mail carriers in the D.C. area. There were five of them in three hours last Saturday.
According to the Washington Post, a paint ball pellet can have about one-third the muzzle velocity of many pistols. Fortunately, the attacks in question resulted only in minor injuries.
The Postal Service described one of the attackers as an African-American male in his 20s. I hope no one will be fired for identifying the race of the attacker.
The coronavirus epidemic probably will end or fade away within a year. The American economy will very likely rebound within the next few years.
However, given the attack on policing and various jail break policies (some of which are supported by President Trump), increasing rates of murder and other serious crime are probably here to stay for the foreseeable future.
