The weekend got off to a tragic and bloody start in Chicago, where a five-month-old girl was among three people shot dead on Friday night.
Little Cecilia Thomas was riding in the backseat of a car Friday evening in the Windy City’s South Shore neighborhood when another car pulled up alongside it and its occupants opened fire, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. The baby was shot in the head and died later at Comer’s Children’s Hospital, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I spoke with the mother. That’s a five-month-old baby,” crisis responder Andrew Holmes told the newspaper. “Nine months she carried that baby, nourished that baby. And it take a damn fool to discharge that weapon and take baby’s life.”
A shooting in Chicago left a 5-month-old baby shot and killed while sitting in back of a car in South Shore. The medical examiner ID'd her. https://t.co/gYEu1mWcjH
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) June 25, 2022
Outside the hospital, heartbroken family members gathered to grieve and vent.
“I hope y’all catch whoever did this,” a woman was heard shouting into her phone. “Took that damn baby’s life.”
Two men, one 21 and the other 45, were found shot later Friday night and both died at area hospitals.
In addition to the fatalities, 13 more people were shot Friday around the violence-plagued city. One man was shot in the eye while driving and made it to the Chicago Medical Center, where he was expected to survive.
But it was the little girl’s death which left people shaken. With no arrests in the shooting, police were reviewing surveillance camera footage in the hopes of identifying the culprits.
“I hope you don’t have no children yourself,” Holmes said. “Because if you do, you shouldn’t sleep at night, you should just turn yourself here knowing you got to look at your child every night. And you done take this lady’s child,” he said. “The baby rested right now, but ain’t gonna be no peace with that family the rest of their life.”
Ja’Mal Green, a Chicago mayoral candidate, announced a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the shooter being arrested and convicted.
Last weekend, 61 people were shot in Chicago, including 10 fatally.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot last month announced a 10 p.m. weekend curfew for minors as the city struggles to stop violent crime. The announcement followed the shooting death of a teenager.
Last year, Chicago saw a near-record number of shootings and homicides, according to statistics released earlier this year. There were 797 homicides, the most since 1996, and a total of 3,561 shootings.
So far, there have been 297 homicides in Chicago this year, according to a Sun-Times database.