Deadliest Highways: Illinois State Police Expressway Shooting Map

Chicago IL

27 January, 2022

10:46 AM

Description

CHICAGO — As Chicago city officials they continue to work to eliminate gun violence, the Illinois State Police have introduced a new interactive map of expressway shootings around the state as the agency hopes provides more context as to when and where the violence is happening. The new map was introduced on Wednesday and tracks reported expressway shootings dating back to 2019. For each shooting, the map provides an exact location, as well as a day and time and whether people were either killed or injured in the incident. The interactive map can be found here. Since 2019, the Dan Ryan Expressway has seen the most violence when it comes to incidents involving guns, the map shows. Over the three-year span, Illinois State Police handled 121 shootings on the expressway, including four that were fatal. The map shows that the Eisenhower Expressway (1-290) tallied 87 shootings, including 10 of which led to people dying. The most deadly location was Interstate 57, which saw 82 shootings over the three years, and police records show that 36 of those incidents included fatalities. The map includes nine major expressways around the state of Illinois. State Police officials said the goal of making the information available to the public is to provide timely and transparent information about shootings that take place on the state's expressways. The map also includes pie charts that break down the incidents by day of the week, where the shootings took place and if people were killed or injured. "We want to provide this information to the general public, community stakeholders, our traffic safety partners, other first responders, and our law enforcement partners to assure them that we are committed to our mission of ensuring public safety on our expressway systems," Illinois State Police Director Brendan F. Kelly said in a statement released by the agency. "Knowing when and where these violent crimes are being committed, provides us with another tool to combating these violent and senseless crimes."