Gunfire often connected to gangs hitting Chicago children

CHICAGO — The Chicago mother thought she knew when it was safe to take her children outside, that she could protect them by sizing up and avoiding the people whom trouble seemed to follow.

“He was with his mother, and it wasn’t like I was doing something wrong, having him out after hours,” said Brashear, a 21-year-old single mother of two, referring to the shooting that happened before sundown June 28 on Chicago’s South Side.

Police records through the end of June showed 15 children younger than 10 years old had been shot, which is seven more young shooting victims than the same span last year.

Four more young children have been shot since the start of July, including a 6-year-old girl who was sitting on a porch Tuesday with her mother and grandmother when a bullet fired a block away struck her in the torso, critically injuring her.