PARK MANOR — A 6-year-old girl was grazed by a bullet and a 22-year-old relative was shot dead in front of a Park Manor home Thursday afternoon, according to authorities.
The man and girl were in the 6800 block of South Calumet Avenue at 2:27 p.m. when shots rang out, said Officer Thomas Sweeney, a Chicago Police spokesman.
The man was shot multiple times in his chest and was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition before he was pronounced dead, Sweeney said.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office identified the man as David McCray, of the same block.
In the aftermath of the shooting, about a dozen family members gathered at the residential street corner where the shooting occurred, crying and hugging one another. One woman knelt and sobbed over a large blood splatter that remained on the sidewalk.
Relatives originally identified the man as David Hopper, and said the girl was his niece.
The girl was identified as Zariah Muhammad by the Tribune. Zariah and her uncle were having a water balloon fight with family members when a man spoke to her uncle before shooting at him, according to the Tribune.
Zariah, whose father was paralyzed by gunfire five years ago, was supposed to have surgery on Friday, according to the Tribune.
She was grazed in her head, said Officer Laura Amezaga, a Chicago Police spokeswoman. Jeff Lyle, deputy district chief with the Chicago Fire Department, said she was taken to Comer Children's Hospital, where she was listed as "stable."
No further information was available, police said.
While many neighbors said the block was relatively quiet and didn't attract much criminal activity, Melvin Jones saw things differently.
"I don't go around no corners, I don't talk to people. I just stay at my place and hope none of this s--- finds me," said Jones, who lives around the corner in the 300 block of East 68th Street. "It's f---ed up around here. We can't go to no suburbs, we're in the middle of it. We live in it, we sleep in it."
"I wish [the police] would just send some cars to sit up on this block and keep watch," he added, saying that his nephew had been shot to death earlier this year.
It has been a particularly brutal summer for Chicago's children.
Monday night, 10-year-old Tavon Tanner was critically wounded in a shooting outside of his home in North Lawndale. On July 19, 6-year-old Tacarra Morgan was shot while outside her home on a sunny afternoon. Also last month, a 4-year-old boy, a 5-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy and an 11-year-old boy were shot in separate incidents across the city.
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