"I'm not suggesting that the media shouldn't pay attention to those issues, but what gets much less attention are the kind of day-to-day outbursts of gun violence that we see primarily in America's inner cities, including in a place like Chicago", Earnest said.
The number is more than the total number of homicides in NY and Los Angeles - America's two biggest cities - combined.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson have blamed the rise in violence on increased gang activity and have repeatedly expressed frustration that state and federal gun laws aren't tougher on habitual offenders.
"An increasing numbers of major cities across the country are experiencing increases in violent crime - in particular gun-related crime", and much of this crime is occurring within minority communities, said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor who is a former USA counterterrorism official.
Nykea Aldridge, a 32-year-old mother of four, was pushing her baby in a stroller near a school where she'd planned to register her children when she was shot in the head and arm. It found that in the six-year span police were involved in a total of 435 shooting incidents where 170 people were wounded and 92 were killed.
While the number of police shootings declined from more than 100 in 2011 to 44 in 2015, data indicated that Chicago's police shootings still outnumbered cities like Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and Philadelphia. They say while they don't want to criticize police efforts, they say law enforcement needs to be more proactive to stop shootings and murders. "We have no choice but to be involved, meaning every person on every block, if we want to save the next generation".
The violence has fallen disproportionately on certain communities in the city. "You have segregated neighborhoods where there is enormous poverty, where there are no jobs, which look like third world countries".
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Another community leader reacting to Chicago's violence is the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow Push Coalition.
Sorrells and his brother Darwin, who was himself paroled earlier this year after serving half of a six-year sentence for gun possession, were career criminals and known gang associates, Johnson said. Murders have soared by 49% compared to a year ago with more than 450 in 2016 alone.
The White House did not immediately respond to Jackson's criticism.
A total of 67 people were shot over the weekend and 11 of them died.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, 90 people were murdered in the city in August, the most murders in a single month since 1996.
Two weeks before police say Derren Sorrells and his brother murdered basketball star Dwyane Wade's cousin in Chicago on Friday, he walked out of a state prison after serving less than four years of a six-year sentence for possessing a stolen vehicle. Mothers put their lives at risk, trying to enroll them. There's no doubt that many of us will be voting in November with that devastating figure in mind. Meanwhile, you've got a revolving door down at the county courthouse where they are letting repeat offenders off easy, and a US attorney's office in Chicago (technically the Northern District of Illinois) that continuously lags behind the national average in prosecuting federal weapons cases. "It's time all over this city to shut streets down", he said.
