The timing of Ms. Monaco’s trip, with the heat setting in over the city, was noteworthy. The onset of warm weather typically signals an onslaught of violence in many parts of the country, with holidays like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July proving deadly in recent years.
Last year, at least 233 people were killed and 618 others were injured in about 500 shootings over the Fourth of July weekend, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an academic consortium that compiles law enforcement data. That was an improvement from 2020, when 314 people were killed and 751 more were injured.
Mass shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, pop up with little public warning. But the seasonal rise in violence in cities is more predictable, and local departments spend months girding for the surge, experimenting with different approaches to limit the carnage.
In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is deploying additional patrols on the city’s West and South Sides. In Milwaukee, police officials are using new acoustic technology to pinpoint gunshots to identify six areas to concentrate on over the holiday weekend. The police in Philadelphia — the site of a recent 70-bullet shootout that one resident likened to a scene from the Wild West — are working on similar plans.
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