St. Sabina holds last Chicago peace march of the season as September sees fewest homicides since 2010

Chicago had 31 homicides last month, the fewest in the month of September since 2010, continuing a historic drop in gun violence in Chicago, according to new police data.

On Friday, community leaders reflected on the progress made and the work still ahead.

"Violence is still real in the city of Chicago," said Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

Community leaders and organizations gathered at St. Sabina on Friday night for a peace walk, and pushed for continued efforts to bring down gun violence in the city.

"We now know that the number one killer for all youth, not just Black and Brown, for all youth, is guns. And that's from domestic violence, it's from interpersonal violence, but also from suicide and unintentional injury," said Dr. Michael McGee, an emergency medicine specialist at University of Chicago Medicine.

Friday was St. Sabina's last peace walk of the season. It came as the Chicago Police Departments reported the city is continuing its downward trend in the overall number of shootings and murders this year.

Police said there were 136 shootings in September, down from 146 in September 2025. Murders also dropped from 45 in September 2025 to 31 in September 2026.

That coincides with the overall downward trend for the year. Through the end of September, murders and shootings both saw decreases compared to 2025 and 2024.

Tonya Burch joined the St. Sabina peace march to honor her sons who were victims of shootings.

"I lost two boys to gun violence, one 17 years ago and one five years ago," she said.

Burch said the decrease in shootings and murders is a positive development, but to her the numbers remain high.

"It's still a lot. It should be less," she said.

Pfleger said he's thankful shootings and murders are dropping, "but to the mother of that child that got killed last night, numbers don't mean anything."

He said the city's gun violence is trending in the right direction, but called for more action among community members and lawmakers to continue the progress.

"We can stop the violence if we want to. We've got to be aggressive, we've got to be bold, we've got to make it happen," he said.