At least 27 people were shot in Chicago over Christmas weekend

Impact

At least 27 people were shot in a 48-hour period over Christmas weekend, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing information from the Chicago police department, seven of them fatally. 

One of the people killed was an 18-year-old man who was shot in the neck and back while he was driving through Chicago's Gage Park neighborhood early Christmas Day, around 1:30 a.m., reported the Times. Less than an hour earlier, a 21-year-old man was fatally shot in the head in the South Shore neighborhood, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Officer Jose Estrada, a spokesperson for the Chicago police department told the Times on Sunday that there had been a total of 745 homicides in Chicago this year — a more-than 50% increase from the same time last year, when the total was 476.

While homicides in Chicago have, as the Times reports, "skyrocketed" this year, the national murder rate hit a 33-year-low in 2016, the FBI announced in October, according to ABC News.

In Chicago however, Christmas weekend was deadly yet again — NBC5 Chicago reported that last Christmas weekend, 30 people were shot in Chicago and six died.