Last year, filmmaker Spike Lee released a film about gang violence in Chicago titled Chi-Raq.  Naturally, city officials hit the roof, complaining that the film portrayed street violence in Chicago unrealistically.

They might want to rethink that criticism.

Over this past weekend, 14 Chicagoans died and 38 were wounded in a spasm of pre-Halloween violence that was shocking even for Chicago.

CBS News:

At least 14 people were killed and 38 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday evening.

The weekend’s latest homicide happened about 3:15 a.m. Sunday in the Old Town neighborhood on the Near North Side.

Two 17-year-old boys were standing outside in the 1300 block of North Hudson, when a dark-colored vehicle drove by and someone inside opened fire, according to Chicago Police.

One teenager was shot in the chest and back and taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The other boy suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and head and was also taken to Northwestern, where he was listed in critical condition.

About 15 minutes earlier, a 19-year-old man was killed and a 40-year-old man was wounded in a Near West Side shooting.

The men were in a car at 2:59 a.m. in the 2100 block of West Jackson when someone walked up and fired shots in their direction, police said.

The driver tried to speed away, but their vehicle struck a parked vehicle before coming to a rest. The younger man suffered several gunshot wounds to the back and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The older man was shot in the shoulder and also taken to Stroger, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

At 2:34 a.m., a 24-year-old woman was shot in the body at in the 10700 block of South Hoxie in the South Deering neighborhood on the Far South Side, police said. She was pronounced dead at Trinity Hospital early Sunday. Additional information was not immediately available.

And on and on.  If you read through the litany of homicides listed in the article, you are immediately struck by the fact that few of these fatal shootings are people caught in the crossfire of gang violence.  Nor does domestic violence play much of a role.  Most of the killings sound like assassinations, not random violence.

There was no reporting on the 38 or so other Chicago residents who were wounded over the weekend.  But their lives have surely been shattered almost as much as those who became the latest victims in Chicago's out-of-control street violence.

How much blame can you place on the police?  City officials?  Certainly both should come in for their fair share of criticism.  But the bottom line is that Chicago residents have been cowed into submission and paralyzed by fear – just like residents of Bagdhad, or any other city in a war zone.