An eight-year-old girl was shot and killed in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago Sunday night.
Neighbors say a man who lived across the street approached a group that included the young girl, pulled out a handgun, and shot the girl in the head.
The girl, who was identified as Serabi Medina, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Serabi had been riding her scooter and standing with a group of people on the sidewalk on the 3500 block of North Long Avenue around the 9:40 p.m. when the shooting occurred.
Moments before her father instructed her to put her scooter away, but before she could do anything, a man who lives in an apartment building across the street approached the group and shot Serabi.
Serabi’s father tackled the man, and in the process the shooter was shot in the face.
The eight-year-old was taken to Stroger Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The gunman was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition and later charged.
Neighbors are in shock, but not entirely surprised as the suspect has previously complained about kids.
“Yesterday when he came out, before he shot her he had said something about them being too loud,” Megan Kelley, neighbor and friend of the family told the Chicago Sun Times.
“Just little kids playing, he would come out just yelling about the noise. It just didn’t make sense, none of it made sense,” she said. “Everybody in the community would just tell him they are just kids having fun playing, just let them be.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the family has dealt with gun violence.
Serabi’s mother was killed in a shooting outside the family’s apartment in 2018.
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When will we learn that we need tougher gun laws? How many people will be killed? Enough is enough.
