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Once again, the Windy City proved to be the breeding ground of murder and mayhem as gunfire rang out over the troubled metropolis.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

A 14-year-old boy was killed and 13 other people were wounded by gunfire across the city Friday night into Saturday morning, including a gang-related shooting near the Lincoln Park Zoo, authorities said.

Antonio Davis, of the 8000 block of South Eberhart Avenue, was found dead with several gunshot wounds in the 7000 block of South Union Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood about 8:40 p.m. Friday, according to the Chicago Fire Department and the medical examiner’s office.

The boy was walking with at least one other person when a grey van pulled up and a passenger, a man wearing a dark-colored hoodie, exited with a gun, said police News Affairs Officer Robert Perez.

He opened fire, striking the boy. As he lay on the ground, the shooter kept firing. “He shot him while the victim was down several times,’’ Perez said. The shooter then got back into the van, which was driven by another man about the same age – between the ages of 20 and 25.

See local news report below:

Tragically, this is nothing new for Chicago. As previously reported by Newsone, one Saturday in March of this year, 7 people were murdered, including a 6-year-old girl Aliyah Shell and 12 more were shot.

Shell was standing on the front porch with her mother and younger sister, when she was killed in a drive-by shooting after someone sprayed the home with multiple gunshots. She was one of 5 people shot within the hour, reports the CPD.

Former White House Chief-of-Staff and current mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, says that gang activity is at the crux of the city’s problems:

Chicago has a problem unlike any other major city given the size of our gangs, said Emmanuel. “Nobody can be content, but we are making progress in the right things that are necessary to bring a level of safety to our streets.”

The size of the gangs, unfortunately, have become one of the problems, but for unexpected reasons.

“In the past, the gangs were very organized from the top down,” said Sgt. Matthew Little of the Chicago Police Department’s gang enforcement unit. As more gang leaders are arrested, convicted, and sent to prison, the gangs they left behind have become “very splintered,” he said.

Earlier this month, Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law the Illinois Street Gang RICO Act, which aims to dismantle gangs by boosting penalties for crimes performed as part of a criminal enterprise.

“There is no one to control this, so it has become haywire,” said Devon Tims, who identified himself as one of the Chicago Vice Lords, making him one of the city’s estimated 70,000 gang members.

During one particularly violent weekend this month, eight people were killed and at least 35 wounded in a spasm of gunfire last weekend.

From Jan. 1 through late May, there were 203 homicides, an increase of more than 50 percent over the 134 during the same period in 2011.