Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson: Too many guns on street, maybe not enough Chicago police officers on the streets to handle the NEGRO VIOLENCE

The Fourth of July weekend was almost over, and the Chicago Police Department's strategies for tamping what historically has been a spike in violence seemed to be working.

By Sunday evening, shootings were sharply down from the year before, and fewer people had been killed. Superintendent Eddie Johnson ventured before reporters and declared: "We're making progress. It's not success yet, but this goes a long way."

Over the next 15 hours, however, gunfire erupted across the South and West sides. More than 30 people were shot after Johnson spoke, doubling the holiday toll to at least 66, one more than last year's Fourth.

In those final hours, a 5-year-old girl and her 8-year-old cousin were each shot in the leg while playing with sparklers in West Englewood; an 11-year-old boy was hit in the arm by what relatives first thought was fireworks on the Near West Side; and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the chest as he was leaving a store in Auburn Gresham on the South Side.

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