Girl who performed for Obama shot dead in Chicago
US: A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Barack Obama's
inauguration last week was shot dead in Chicago by a gunman who opened
fire on a group of kids hanging out in a park, police said Wednesday.
"It is believed that the offender mistook the group for gang members
and fired at them," Chicago police office Laura Kubiak told AFP.
Hadiya Pendleton -- described by a relative as a "walking angel" --
was sheltering from the rain under a canopy with about 10 or 12 other
teenagers Tuesday when the gunman leaped over a fence, opened fire and
then jumped into a getaway car at 2:30 pm. Her friends scrambled in fear
and did not stay to help Pendleton or the two boys were were also
injured, Kubiak said.
"As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy,"
her godfather, Chicago police officer Damon Stewart, lamented to the
Chicago Sun-Times. "I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up.
My heart is broken." The park where Pendleton was shot is about a mile
away from Obama's South Side home.
Chicago is struggling to control an epidemic of gang violence, which
helped push the city's murder rate up 16 percent to 506 people in 2012.
The city has already logged more than 40 murders so far this year.
The shooting also comes as the nation is embroiled in a debate over
gun violence in the wake of the massacre of 20 young children and six
staff members at a Connecticut elementary school.
AFP |