An 8-year-old girl was struck and killed by a stray bullet while walking with her mother on a Chicago street Saturday afternoon, reports said.
Melissa Ortega was struck in the head by one of several rounds fired by a male suspect toward a 26-year-old known gang member near the intersection of 26th Street near Pulaski Road in Little Village just before 3 p.m., the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The little girl was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead. The target, who was also hit in the hail of gunfire, was left in critical condition.
Witness Oscar Guevara told CBS Chicago that he heard numerous shots before coming to the girl’s aid.
“I heard the mother screaming for help,” Guevara told the news outlet.
“I had [a] cover, and we put it over her to keep her warm. But there was really nothing we could do,” he said.
“She tried to get up at one point, and that was the hardest part to see. She tried to get up and she like looked around and she laid back down,” Guevara said.
Investigators recovered 13 shell casings from the scene, according to a police report obtained by the Sun-Times.
Ortega and her mother had emigrated from Mexico in August, according to GoFundMe page.
“They were both excited to start a new life in Chicago and build their American Dream,” the page’s organizer wrote.
No arrests were made in the case as of early Monday and police have not publicly revealed a motive.