Chicago funeral homes are raking it in amid the city’s largely ignored murder epidemic, reports
Taking advantage of a taxpayer-funded scheme which guarantees up to $7,500 in funeral expenses for the families of homicide victims, several funeral directors have been accused of inflating prices or charging families for services which were never performed.
“Every funeral home in the state knows that victims get $7,500 for a funeral and it’s their goal to charge the entire amount because it’s easy money,” Susan Johnson, executive director of Chicago Survivors, told
Johnson, whose organization helps people who have lost loved ones to homicide, claims some zero in on people receiving money from the Illinois Crime Victim’s Compensation fund.
The state – along with the federal government – provides eligible victims of violent crime with up to $27,000 in financial assistance for out-of-pocket expenses. The families of murder victims get $7,500 for funeral costs.
According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost of a funeral for an adult is between $7,000 and $8,300. The Federal Trade Commission puts the figure slightly higher at around $10,000. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Fourteen people were shot, three fatally, including a woman sitting in a Lyft, in Chicago Friday and early Saturday, according to reports.
Around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, multiple people came up to the woman in the vehicle in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and opened fire, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The 27-year-old woman was shot in the back and taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Angie Castro told the Chicago Tribune her boyfriend was driving the Lyft the woman was shot in.
“He was shocked, nervous,” she told the paper.
Police said a 20-year-old man was killed around 8:30 p.m. Friday in a drive-by shooting in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side, the Sun-Times reported. The bullets were fired from a passing dark-colored vehicle. – READ MORE
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