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The Documentary: Seven dead, 46 injured: One Chicago weekend

Memorial in Chicago

16/05/2020 GMT

Seven dead, 46 injured: One Chicago weekend

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Seven dead, 46 injured: One Chicago weekend

As violence rockets across the USA we look back at a weekend of shootings in Chicago

As violence rockets in cities across the USA we bring you stories from an August weekend of shootings in Chicago, narrated by Clarke Peters.

On Monday 5 August last year, the Chicago Sun Times newspaper carried this headline: “Seven deaths, 46 wounded in Chicago Weekend Shootings.” It was referring to the casualty list after one summer weekend in Chicago.

As violence flares in cities across the USA this programme reconstructs those three days in 2019. Narrated by Clarke Peters (The Wire’s Detective Lester Freamon), and with a specially composed music and sound design, this immersive documentary uses the words of the city newspaper updates on the violence, alongside eyewitness accounts and the sad personal stories of relatives and friends who lost loved ones.

This series of unconnected gun incidents in Chicago took place while America was focused on two mass shootings elsewhere that weekend - in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton Ohio.

We hear from the father of one of the men killed in a Chicago shooting, from the ER director of the hospital forced to refuse new admissions in order to deal with the victims; from an eye-witness who helped young people wounded during a drive-by at a local park; and from an anti-violence campaigner whose friend was shot dead in the middle of the day.

Yet the level of gun violence in Chicago that weekend, was not particularly unusual - and this year, the figures are only getting worse. With emotional first person recollections, the documentary recreates life in a city where gun violence has become part of everyday life.

(Photo: A memorial where 26-year-old Chantell Grant and 35-year-old Andrea Stoudemire, mothers volunteering with a group called Mothers Against Senseless Killings (MASK) were shot and killed 28 July 2019, in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. Credit: Getty Images)

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