CHICAGO, July 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A 7-year-old girl playing with children in Chicago, an 8-year-old Atlanta girl riding with her mother and an 11-year-old boy running to get a phone charger in Washington were among the victims of gun violence over the July 4 weekend.
The violence comes amid an uptick in shootings and homicides in American cities.
The girl in Chicago was visiting her grandmother in the Austin neighborhood Saturday evening, playing with other children when a car pulled up, three people got out and they opened fire on a group of people, the Chicago Police Department said.
The 7-year-old was shot in the head and died at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Chicago police spokeswoman Jessica Rocco said.
A 32-year-old was wounded, she said.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, in a series of tweets, lamented another child “whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun.” She asked anyone with information to come forward.
In another late Saturday shooting in Chinago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood left four men dead and four more people injured. The shooting happened about 11:35 p.m., police said.
The victims were attending a large street gathering when “approximately four males” walked up and began shooting, police said. The suspects fled the scene.Two people were pronounced dead at the scene, and a third victim who had gunshot wounds to his chest and back died at the University of Chicago Medical Center. A fourth gunshot victim, a 14-year-old, was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where he later died.
In the nation’s capital, 11-year-old Davon McNeal was killed Saturday night after a group of five young males began shooting in southeast Washington, Mayor Muriel Bowser and DC Police said.
Davon was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. The shooting occurred around 9:30 p.m., DC Police Chief Peter Newsham said.
Davon’s grandfather John Ayala — who founded the DC chapter of the Guardian Angels and has been fighting gun violence for many years — said his grandson was running into his aunt’s house to grab a phone charger.
His mother, sitting in the car, heard gunshots and saw her son duck. She thought he was trying to dodge the bullets, Ayala said, but then noticed he wasn’t moving and found he’d been shot in the head.
Bowser announced a $25,000 reward Sunday for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.”The public’s help is dire in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the horrendous killing of 11-year old Davon McNeal,” the mayor said in a tweet announcing the reward.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also asked that people come forward with information after an 8-year-old girl was shot Saturday night near the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was killed last month.
“I am asking you to please honor this baby’s life. Please, if you know who did this, please turn them in,” Bottoms said at a news conference Sunday.
Secoriea Turner was riding in a vehicle with her mother and an adult friend downtown, according to police. The driver was attempting to enter a parking lot where a group of people had illegally placed barricades, and someone in the group opened fire on the vehicle, according to police, striking Turner.
Bottoms said she wants people to have the same passion for ending community violence that they have for police reform.”We’ve had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks,” Bottoms said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp offered his condolences to Secoriea’s family Sunday, posting on Twitter: “Our hearts absolutely break for this precious life senselessly taken.”
Police are offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the girl’s killers.
In Alabama, police arrested a suspect in the shooting death of an 8-year-old at the Riverchase Galleria mall in Hoover, south of Birmingham, on Friday, according to the Hoover Police Department.
Montez Moses Miracle Coleman, 22, of Birmingham, was arrested in the death of Royta De’Marco Giles, 8, police said in a news release. He was being held Sunday in the Jefferson County Jail on one charge of murder and three counts of assault, police said.
Police said Coleman had gotten into an argument with a group of men and they exchanged fire.The child and three others who were hurt are believed to have been “innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire,” the release said.
Gun violence also shook New York over the holiday weekend, with at least 34 shooting incidents affecting 51 victims, according to NYPD statistics.
In one incident, two officers were injured when a bullet struck the front windshield of a marked radio patrol vehicle in the Bronx just before midnight July 4, the NYPD said. Both were treated for minor injuries. — NNN-AGENCIES