Hails of bullets in U.S. increasingly felling kids
Gun violence in cities turns indiscriminate
CHICAGO — July in Chicago ended as it began: with mourning over the death of a child whose only mistake was venturing outside to play when someone armed with a gun came to the neighborhood hunting for an enemy.
On Monday, two days after his department released statistics revealing that the month had been one of the deadliest in the history of the city, Police Superintendent David Brown repeated what has become a grim ritual of recounting the death of a child.
This time, the story was about Janari Ricks. “Nine years old, (he) was shot and killed while doing what every child in our city should able to do without a second thought … playing with friends on a warm summer evening just outside his front door,” said Brown. “Now, instead of planning for his future, Janari’s parents are arranging for their child’s funeral.”
His death underscores a surge in gun violence in the the United States that has been building all year.
Just how many of the year’s victims are children is difficult to say. But every day headlines around the country tell story after story of children dying while doing nothing more than being children.
In Ohio, in little more than a week: A 14-year-old boy in Columbus died on July 25 when he was shot while riding a scooter; an infant was killed and his twin brother wounded when someone fired shots into their home on July 22. And on Sunday, a 1-year-old was killed in Akron and two adults wounded when someone opened fire on a home.
In Columbus alone, the total number of child homicide victims this year stands at 13.
In Philadelphia, a 7-year-old shot in the head over the weekend during a shootout between three men in front of his home later died of his injuries. Police spokesman Inspector Sekou Kinebrew said Zamar Jones died Monday. The boy was sitting on his porch Saturday when he was shot.
Chicago had registered 440 homicides by the end of July, compared with 290 for the same period last year. And more and more of the victims are children.
Brown said Janari was the 38th juvenile to be fatally shot in the city this year. In all, 19 children under the age of 10 have been shot in 2020, five of them fatally.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and prominent activist on the city’s South Side for more than 40 years, said this “new normal” involves a willingness to shoot whoever is near an intended target.