A Chicago Democrat is asking gang members to limit their shootings and murders to the evening hours.
Democratic alderwoman Maria Hadden, in an email newsletter, promoted a proposal from the community group Native Sons called "the People's Ordinance," which asks gang members to not shoot between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
"We have to start somewhere," cofounder of Native Sons Tatiana Atkins said of the ordinance, according to CWBChicago. "Our goal is to approach our city’s gun violence problem strategically and not all at once. Things didn’t become this way overnight, and change won’t happen overnight.
The idea is to reduce risk for people "not involved in high risk activities," especially children.
Atkins hopes parents "may become more proactive" with children if they know when gang shootings are likely to occur.
The proposal comes as Chicago continues to struggle with constant violence under its new Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson.
Last weekend 23 people were shot, 4 fatally. The weekend before that, an eight-year-old girl was among seven people killed.
Crime increased by 38 percent in the month after Johnson took office in May. Robberies are up 17 percent compared with this time last year, according to police data, and are up by 30 percent in the past three years.
Johnson's campaign called for "health professionals, not police" to "respond to crisis calls." He was the only mayoral candidate who did not back filling the city's police vacancies, which number more than 1,500 positions.
Former mayor Lori Lightfoot saw the homicide rate skyrocket nearly 40 percent since taking office in 2019, watchdog Wirepoints reported. She now works as a teaching fellow at Harvard University.