Bloody weekend in Chicago sees at least TWENTY-TWO people shot, four fatally - with not a single arrest made in the crime-ridden, Dem-led city

Four people are dead after a weekend of violence in Chicago saw at least 22 shot and no-one arrested for any of the murders.

It came as the latest police figures showed crimes up by 68 per cent on this time two years ago in the Democrat-led city of Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The shootings were double the 11 recorded the previous weekend and began on Friday with the gunning down of an 18-year-old man found shot to death at 9pm inside a car in the Englewood district.

That evening saw two off-duty police officers robbed at gunpoint in the nearby South Loop district where 32-year-old Corey Ivy was found shot dead in his SUV on Saturday.

It made grim reading for the mayor of a city where more than 300 people have been murdered since he took office on May 15 on a promise to build 'a better, stronger, safer Chicago'.

Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson has overseen a 19 percent rise in Chicago's crime this year

Robbery is up by a half this year alone while motor vehicle thefts have tripled since 2020

Four were dead and another 18 injured after the latest weekend of shootings in the Windy City

An hour after the 18-year-old was found dead, Ismael Yanez, 42, was shot in the head while driving in Archer Heights.

The father-of-three was pronounced dead in hospital.

Little over three hours later a gunfight in the street left three people shot and one dead on the city's Northwest Side.

A 31-year-old man was in the 1600 block of North Hamlin Avenue at around 1.17am when two men drove up and began shooting at him.

Their target, who has a concealed carry license holder, returned fire shooting one of his attackers in the chest, killing 44-year-old Edwin Lopez instantly.

His other attacker was expected to survive after being shot in the shoulder, while the 31-year-old target was shot in the torso and taken to a hospital in 'fair condition', police said.

But you only have to go back to late November to find a more deadly weekend, when six people were shot dead between Friday 17 and Sunday 19.

Johnson previously supported the Defund the Police movement and has been widely criticized for a soft-on-crime approach.

He made history when he was elected as the first person to unseat a presiding mayor in the Dem-led city since 1983, pledging to make the city a place where 'all residents can live and work free from the threat of violence'.

Johnson's radical approach to policing involves reallocating funds from enforcement to social services like housing and education, while taxing the rich and local businesses.

But the former union organizer said the city doesn't have the money to solve its problem because '70 percent of large corporations in the state of Illinois don't pay a corporate tax'.

'It's that type of restraint on our budget that has caused the type if disinvestment that has led to poverty, of course that has led to violence,' he added.

His predecessor Lori Lightfoot's time in office was marked by criticism over her handling of crime in the city, which has risen significantly. The city recorded 800 murders in 2021, the highest in 25 years.

Chicago has led the nation for the 11th straight year with the highest number of homicides of any US city, according to a report published earlier this year.

There have been 555 murders in Chicago so far this year with more than 2,280 shootings.

The city had 697 total homicides in 2022, higher than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435), and Los Angeles (382).

The latest statistics from the Chicago Police Department show that robberies are up by a full quarter so far this year to just under 10,000, with motor vehicle thefts tripling on this time three years ago.

Total crime has jumped 20 percent this year and is up by two thirds on 2021.

But the total number of 'shooting incidents' has fallen by 13 per cent since last year when 116 people were shot and 25 killed over the course of two weekends in the early summer.

The last time Chicago had fewer than 400 homicides was in 1965.