A 7-year-old girl is in the hospital, critically injured after being shot while trick-or-treating Thursday night in Chicago.
According to CNN, a man fired his gun while chasing another man. The little girl, dressed like a bumblebee, was walking with her father when at least one bullet struck her lower neck and upper chest, reports the Chicago Tribune. The man shooting was allegedly masked and yelling gang slogans.
Lali Lara, a young woman who witnessed the incident while working in a nearby cellphone store, tells the Chicago Tribune that “the girl’s father was screaming, ‘My little girl’s been shot!'” Lara says she quickly rushed the girl and her father into the cellphone store for safety. She says she held the girl’s hand while pressing on her chest to stop the bleeding.
“I was pressing on her and calling her name so she won’t close her eyes,” Lara says. “She was looking at me, and I was calling her name. She was holding my hand for three minutes and then she let me go. I have kids—I would go crazy if something happened to my kids.”
Chicago Police Department Sgt. Rocco Alioto told reporters that the child is “fighting for her life.”
“This is unacceptable,” he said Thursday night. “It’s a 7-year-old girl that’s trick-or-treating with her family out here, and happens to get shot because a group of guys want to shoot while there’s a street full of kids trick-or-treating.”
A 31-year-old man was also shot during the incident, though his bullet wound is in his left hand. {eoa}
