violence gripping that city. trace gallagher has that part of our story. is he live in los angeles. hey, trace. and shannon if you look at the numbers in chicago you can see why the red alert is flashing in that city. look at this. last year there were 506 murders in the city of chicago. that s a 16% increase, a significant increase. take a rook just this year 42 homicides already on the exact same pace as last year. there have been seven murders in chicago in just the past five days. the mayor there rahm immanuel is now flooding the streets with police, taking cops who normally do administrative work and putting them in patrol cars. now, what really brought this to a head is the murder last week of 15-year-old pendleton, an honors student. she performed at events surrounding the inauguration. gunned down in a park near her school. police believe it was a case of mistaken identity. the reverend jesse jackson led a march this weekend to the park where she was shot and killed.
laws in the country, handguns were banned completely until two or three years ago, and yet we still have this epidemic? more than 40 people killed by guns already. i just looked at the chicago tribune website. two hours ago a woman was found shot to death in a van on an off-ramp on lake shore drive. how do you answer the fact, you ve already got tough gun laws and yet all this violence? it s not just about gun laws, it s gun flow and job flow. we know where they re manufactured. and you cannot stop them. rahm is doing a tremendous job, i think, trying to maneuver police. he s in this box, guns coming in. and when the plants close and the jobs leave, so poverty and drugs and guns and race are factors. if this were the north side of town, it would be a different arrangement. even there, i might add. what do you mean by that? there s a kind of grouping in difference on racial basis. last year 506 were killed, 175 under age 18. all we could get was the people are at fault.
thank you. rick: you bet. ainsley: in washington rallying for more gun control. america, america, god shed his grace on thee well, it it started with a silent march from capitol hill to the washington monument and lawmakers spoke out calling for universal background checks on gun buyers and bans on assault weapons in the wake of the tragedy in newtown, connecticut. meanwhile, a violent weekend in a city with one of the strictest gun control policies. cops in chicago responding to six deadly shootings in one day. of those killed, two were double homicides and all, but one of the shootings happened in broad daylight. no arrests have been made and chicago saw 506 homicides, that s from years before and killings in others cities dropped. could the streets of louisiana one day look like this?
steve: america apparently is falling out of love with unions nationwide. membership is at an all-time low despite salaries for union members remaining high. case in point, chicago s police department. alisyn: even though chicago s murder rate skyrocketed, city employees have been able to rack up unbelievable overtime checks and not because they re solving the crimes. stuart varney has the numbers. chicago has the dubious distinction of being the murder capital of the country. they had 506, i think, murders and only 129 of them solved. yet, all the people, the cops on the police department are getting all sorts of overtime not for solving crimes. look at the numbers for a second. i ve got numbers on a communications officer, a
506 degrees below 50 degrees below zero. hypothermia is a concern. you have to bundle up. the cold air setting the stage for the next storm system as we head into friday and saturday. we could be looking at three to eight inches of snowfall possible across places in pennsylvania, new jersey, up in through areas of across massachusetts. again, stay alert out here. we could be looking at some accumulating snowfall, and pretty significant for some, over six inches. west coast dealing with that storm system now, producing rain across seattle, portland, in through portions of california and that lake effect snow really piling up downwind of the lakes. you re talking about some places accumulating up to three feet of snow. and now for confirmation it s cold out? steve, how is it looking? steve: it s cold. you re the weather person in this show. why am i outside in the weather and you re inside in short sleeves? i ll go see you outside. steve: all right. it s really cold. but you knew