** BLM Violence
** BLM co-founder says “We are Trained Marxixts”
** Violence erupts in Chicago over July 4th weekend
**8-yr old killed girl in Atlanta shooting near BLM protest
** Atlanta Mayor calls for end to BLM violence after death of 8-year old
** President Trump is fighting for America
**Trump The American people will not allow our country, values, history and culture to be taken
** Trump: This attack on our liberty must be stopped
** US news oannawalters13 - 7 Jul 2020
Gun violence kills 160 as holiday weekend exposes tale of 'two Americas'
With more than 500 wounded across the US, local leaders see racism and under-investment at the root of the crisis
A six-year-old in Philadelphia, a seven-year-old in Chicago, an eight-year-old in Atlanta, a 15-year-old in New York, all shot. Community cries of “enough is enough”.
Neighborhoods in some of the largest US cities erupted in gun violence over the Fourth of July weekend, killing an estimated 160 people and leaving more than 500 wounded from Friday night to Sunday.
Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, declared a state of emergency on Monday after 31 people were shot and five killed over the weekend in Atlanta. He authorized 1,000 national guard troops to “protect state property and patrol our streets”.
But Chicago saw the worst violence in one of the bloodiest holiday weekends in recent memory, ending with 17 people fatally shot including a seven-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy and 63 more wounded, an increase of five shootings on the high figures that had marred the holiday weekend the previous year.
Despite an effort that included an additional 1,200 officers on the streets and pleas from the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, for residents not to reverse limited progress that had been made against the epidemic of gun violence, Lightfoot lamented the children whose “hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun”.
The city’s south and west sides have seen worse weekends this year, however, and a one-year-old and a three-year-old were killed during recent shootings. The rising violence prompted Donald Trump to write to Lightfoot and the Illinois governor, JB Priztker, both Democrats, accusing them of receiving more than $1bn in special federal funding for anti-crime measures and coronavirus relief that was “not being turned into results”.
“Your lack of leadership … continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect,” the letter said.
Lightfoot dismissed Trump’s letter as “all talk, little action”.
The shooting death of an eight-year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, in Atlanta, prompted the mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, to call for justice while noting the shadow such street violence casts over the huge and largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police brutality.
“Enough is enough,” Bottoms said. “If you want people to take us seriously and you don’t want us to lose this movement, we can’t lose each other.”
The shooting happened near the Wendy’s restaurant where a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, was killed by a white police officer in June.
“She was only eight years old,” Charmaine Turner said of her daughter Secoriea. “Right now, she would have been on TikTok, dancing on her phone.”
Atlanta police said two other people were killed and more than 20 injured in gunfire during the holiday weekend.
In New York, a series of shootings on Saturday and Sunday claimed at least nine lives and wounded 41 others in a rise in incidents in some neighborhoods. A 15-year-old boy was wounded in the Bronx.
And in Philadelphia, a six-year-old boy died of a gunshot wound amid five fatal shootings in about five hours on Sunday afternoon, police said.
The Trace, a non-profit news website covering gun violence in the US, which tallied the weekend toll of shootings in the US, reported that preliminary research from the University of California, Davis, has found a potential link between the rise in violence and a surge in gun-buying during the coronavirus pandemic, of more than 2.1 million more guns than usual between March and May.
Full Article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/gun-violence-shootings-fourth-of-july-weekend-racism-segregation