5 Young People Found Dead In Chicago

(CBS/AP)  Authorities found the bodies of five young people Wednesday inside a ransacked house on Chicago's South Side, raising the body count in an already violent spring, police said.

It appeared the three men and two women had been shot, but investigators were waiting for the Cook County medical examiner's office to confirm a cause of death, said Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrne. Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, the medical examiner's office said.

"This is very serious," Byrne said at a news conference near the two-story house. "There's five victims. There's five families right now that are grieving over this."

All the victims were in their 20s, and they all knew each other, said Deputy Chief Eugene Williams. There were signs of forced entry into the house, which appeared to have been ransacked, Williams said.

A woman visiting the house found the bodies Wednesday afternoon, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

Police did not have offenders in custody but did not believe a killer was on the loose, Bond said. It was possible the victims knew the offender, she said.

"We don't think that the neighbors need to worry," she said. "We believe that it's been contained inside this residence."

Police declined to comment on whether the scene was a murder-suicide.

They cordoned off a section of the residential street as neighbors milled around, talked in groups and watched.

Bernard Scales, who said he is the grandfather of one of the victims, said the deceased were "good kids."

"They weren't gangbangers and they weren't into drug-dealing. I bet somebody over there thought they were into something, but they weren't," Scales told the Chicago Tribune.

The discovery comes on the heels of a spate of violence in Chicago. Nine people died in 36 shootings over the past weekend. The weekend shootings were scattered all over the city. Police said they included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.

One man died and three others were wounded, including one of the alleged offenders, in shootings late Monday in a McDonald's restaurant parking lot on the South Side.

The recent violence followed a six-month period of deadly violence against Chicago public school students, reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

Since September, 24 students have been murdered. Last school year 34 students were killed, an average of one child getting murdered every eight days.

[caddillackid]

I''m not a supporter of guns. I feel if you live by the gun, you die by the gun!! I recall one new years eve when family members were doing the traditional shooting in the air (which I also do not agree with) and my 4 year old niece says "the light, the light...I wanna see the light again." She was referring to the fire coming out of the barrel of the gun...she called it the light. I''m considering purchasing a gun, w/permit of course due to the increasing violence I''m seeing nation wide. I feel that people who do not value their own lives, certainly do not care for others. I feel that when you come in contact with these types of people, you come into the darkest of possible situations with these people running loose. I will soon purchase a gun, so when its darkest, I can "shine the light" as my niece says. My question...how many others think this way. How many others who are not gun owners will soon become gun owners...self preservation is ALWAYS the first rule of nature, can''t beat em, join em!

[caddillackid]

sinceless...just sinceless.

[algoresarse]

My God what is going on there? Here? Everywhere?

Posted by TawpDawg11 at 11:29 PM : Apr 24, 2008
+ report abuse

*******

its a failed liberal experiment

[appalachiasc]

I apologize "tawpdawg" I should have made that response to "tbweb." And Veteran72 you cannot blame the Bush administration. That is really shallow. I served my country too, and I realize what a monster we are up against instead of making our on president the criminal.

[appalachiasc]

Where did you get your information "tawpdawg?" There is no truth to that. Our military numbers are so insignificant, around 500,000, that it makes no difference. Statistically, you are more likely to get shot in our nation''s capital, or chicago, or Baltimore, than you are to be killed in Iraq per capita.

[tbweb]

My God what is going on there? Here? Everywhere?

Posted by TawpDawg11 at 11:29 PM : Apr 24, 2008,,,

You want the truth, all our good guys, cooler heads that normally keep the peace and calm things down here in the U.S. are now doing that in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we need them back home doing that here for us, not over there, and its as simple as that! Keeping it real!

[tawpdawg11]

My God what is going on there? Here? Everywhere?

[veteran72]

When times get hard, all crime goes up, and times under the Shrub Administration are as hard as they''ve been in a long, long, time. What''s worse is, we haven''t seen anything yet. Just wait a little bit.

[cattlekate]

Come on people, lets work together to make the world better, not rip on the color of the person. We all live together here on earth, we are but one people.
Posted by hunterdon6 at 08:10 PM : Apr 24, 2008

Good post and thank you.

As a Democrat, it is sickening to me how these tragedies are used as fodder for "gun control."

For goodness sakes - I am a Democrat and I have a bunch of firearms for hunting and protection.

And I am sick of the Repubs stating there should be no limits as to who owns guns, and the amount of ammo in a clip, or its ability to repeat.

Only the most thoughtful can determine how and why this tragedy came to be. There are many factors.

[billorights]

Many people here are more upset with the thought of gun control than the fact that several people have died. Shameful.

And, placing more guns on the street is not going to solve the problem. People who commit these crimes are already placing themselves at risk of being killed. If someone doesn''t care about himself and is only living in the present, he or she is not going to care whether the person has a gun or not. - Posted by whatithink at 09:18 AM : Apr 24, 2008

The people who died did not die of a lack of gun control. If anything, they may have died because of it.

According to the article, these victims were not involved with drugs or gangs. The home in which they were killed had been ransacked. It sounds like they were murdered to eliminate potential witnesses. The existing restrictive gun control laws in Chicago may have been a significant contributing factor in facilitating their deaths.

Nobody genuinely advocates arming everyone on the streets. Reasonable people trained to properly operate a firearm should not have to risk criminal penalties for exercising their right to defend their own lives, especially in their own homes.

Those of us against gun control are overwhelmingly in favor of liberty, personal responsibility, and the enforcement of laws which punish criminal behavior, instead of punishing those who obey the law. That you are not is shameful.