CABRINI GREEN — A 9-year-old boy was shot and killed while playing in the Cabrini Green neighborhood Friday evening, the latest in a string of young children to be shot this summer in Chicago.
The boy, identified as Janari Ricks by the Cook County medical examiner’s office, was shot around 6:00 p.m. in the 900 block of North Cambridge Avenue, Chief of Operations Brian McDermott said at a press conference Friday night.
The shooter approached on foot and fired multiple shots in the direction of the child and several others gathered in the area, McDermott said. The boy was struck “several times,” McDermott said, adding he believed the boy was in a parking lot playing when he was shot.
The boy was the only person hit but he is not believed to have been the intended target, McDermott said.
Responding officers performed CPR until paramedics arrived and took the boy to Lurie Children’s Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 7 p.m, McDermott said.
No one is in custody. Detectives are on the scene reviewing any potential video evidence, McDermott said. Police urge anyone with information to contact CPDTip.com.
One woman sitting on her stoop near the scene said she was inside with her two kids and two grandchildren when they heard gunshots.
“I heard six shots. You knew it wasn’t fireworks but I could tell it was down the block, not right here,” the woman said, declining to give her name.
The shooting occurred not long after after Adam Hollingsworth, known as Dreadheadcowboy, led a Kids Lives Matter march through Woodlawn, with young children protesting gun violence.
The little boy is among several young children who have been shot throughout the city in recent weeks of spiking gun violence.
On Thursday, an 8-year-old boy was among two shot in Altgeld Gardens in the Far South Side, according to the Sun-Times.
On Monday, a baby was shot and critically wounded while riding in a car on the Bishop Ford Expressway in the Far South Side.
On July 22, a 3-year-old girl was shot and seriously wounded in South Shore.
On July 16, a 5-month-old baby was wounded in a shooting in Old Town when a bullet grazed his eye.
On June 30, a 3-year-old girl was shot and wounded in Englewood.
On June 27, 20-month-old Sincere Gaston was shot and killed in Englewood. The same night, 10-year-old Lena Nunez Anaya was fatally shot in Logan Square.
On June 22, a 3-year-old girl was wounded when a bullet grazed her in Chicago Lawn.
On June 20, 3-year-old Mekhi James and 13-year-old Amaria Jones were killed in separate shootings on the West Side.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke out about Janari’s death Saturday, saying “gun violence is every bit a public health crisis as COVID-19.”
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