CHICAGO — A baby was shot and killed and his mother wounded Saturday afternoon in Englewood.
About 2 p.m., the woman, 22, was driving her baby, a 20-month-old, when someone in another car pulled alongside them and someone in that car fired shots at the woman’s car, police said. The shooting happened as the woman was on Halsted Street near 60th Street.
The baby was hit in his chest and a bullet grazed the mother’s head. The woman drove to St. Bernard Hospital, where her child was pronounced dead.
The baby, who was named Sincere A. Gaston, was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The woman refused treatment at first but was then taken to University of Chicago Hospital.
The gunman fired seven to eight shots with a handgun, said Fred Waller, police chief of operations. The shots were fired into the passenger side and back part of the car, where the baby had been sitting in a car seat.
“I don’t think it was random because of the amount of times it was fired upon doesn’t seem like it was random,” Waller said during a Saturday press conference.
The woman was returning from the laundromat and she and the child were the only ones in the car, Waller said.
Just a week ago, a 3-year-old boy, Mekhi James, was shot dead on the West Side. That same weekend saw four other children shot.
“When is this gonna stop? When are we gonna say, ‘Enough is enough’?” Waller said. “We’ll catch the person who killed that 3-year-old. We’ll catch the person who killed this kid. But that’s not gonna bring that kid back, and that’s not gonna satisfy that family.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter everyone in Chicago must “double down on our all-hands-on-deck public safety efforts” after the shooting.
“Father Mike Pfleger says that with every death of a child, we are burying our future. He’s right and we must do better,” Lightfoot said in a series of tweets. “It’s on all of us. It’s on all of us to find the courage to be a part of the solution.”
On Sunday, businessman Early Walker, Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th) and other area business leaders announced a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the gunman.
“We are asking and pleading to please call that hotline if you know anything,” Coleman said. “…Sincere deserved to live his life and grow up in the Englewood that I know and love.”
On Saturday, activist Ja’Mal Green said he is offering a $5,000 reward.
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