Chicago rocked by worst weekend of gun violence this year
With at least 100 people shot and more than a dozen killed across the city, what needs to be done to stop the violence? Pastor Corey Brooks weighs in.
Amaria Jones was dancing with her mom Saturday night when she died.
Authorities said a stray bullet shot from outside their Chicago home hit the girl in the neck.
“She was showing me this dance called TikTok,” Jones’ mother, Lawanda Jones, told WBBM-TV in Chicago. “I turned around and I was looking for her and she was on the ground reaching out like this, holding her neck…The last thought that I have of my baby is her reaching out with blood gushing out her neck.”
She died soon after at the hospital. Two boys, 15 and 16, who were sitting on the porch outside were also wounded in the shooting, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Jones was among 102 people shot in Chicago over Father’s Day weekend, the station reported, including 14 who were killed in one of the deadliest weekends this year.
CHICAGO PASTOR SAYS 'LINE WAS CROSSED' AFTER 3-YEAR-OLD AMONG DEAD IN WEEKEND SHOOTINGS
Police are still searching for her shooter.
Her mother attended a vigil Wednesday for her daughter and a 3-year-old boy, Mekhi James, who was shot and killed while riding in the back of his stepfather's car Saturday, just hours and only a few blocks away from Jones' home.
Jones said she wants justice for her daughter and urged her killer to turn himself or herself in.
“They talk about the police killing — killing our citizens. They’re killing each other off,” she told WBBM through tears. “Our kids are not safe no more. Period. You can’t sit on your porch. You can’t even be in your own house. You’ll get killed.”
She said her heart goes out to the other parents who have lost children.
"Don’t nobody know what it’s like unless you are in these shoes, to lose a child,” she said. “You might sympathize with us, but you ain’t going to feel the pain until it actually happens.”
Lawanda Jones’ nephew was also fatally shot a year ago just three blocks from where her daughter died, the station reported.
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"She loved to talk and she wanted to be heard," Jones said of her daughter, according to WLS-TV. "She wanted you to see her and hear her."
