A Grim Milestone

The gun-free zone known as Chicago surpasses 500 murders.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says the city has logged its 500th homicide of the year. 

McCarthy issued a statement Friday calling the milestone a "tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods."

The police department went back and forth Friday, first verifying the 500th killing, then backing off and saying an earlier death was still being investigate. 

By late Friday, police confirmed 40-year-old Nathaniel Jackson had become the 500th homicide victim when he was fatally shot in the head outside a convenience store on the city's West Side.