7-year old girl shot and killed in Chicago

Heaven Sutton, age 7, with mother

A 7-year old girl was with a group of people when two gunmen opened fire, shooting her in the back and killing her, and wounding a 19-year old in the ankle.


From an article:

A young girl was shot and killed late Wednesday night in the North Austin neighborhood on the city's West Side.

The 7-year-old girl was shot just before 10:45 p.m. in the 1700 block of North Luna Avenue, according to Chicago police.

Two men approached a group of people standing on the sidewalk and one of the men pulled a handgun and opened fire, said Officer Hector Alfaro, a police spokesman.

The girl, who was shot in the chest, was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood where she was pronounced dead, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Officials there were withholding the child's name.

The girl is 20th person under the age of 17 to be fatally shot in the city this year, according to a Tribune crime analysis.

A 19-year-old man was also taken to Loyola for a non-serious gunshot wound to the ankle, Alfaro said.

Authorities suspect that the girl was simply an innocent bystander rather than the intended target, but Area North detectives were still in the early stages of their investigation, a police source said.

Early reports indicated that a known gang member was seen fleeing the scene with a pistol in hand.

UPDATE (6/28/12):  The victim's name was Heaven Sutton.  She was selling candy at a stand at the time of the shooting.  From an article:

The girl’s mother, Ashake Banks, said she threw herself on the ground while her daughter ran into her family’s home. Moments later, Banks said she found her daughter unconscious inside a hallway.....Banks said the soon-to-be second grader told her on several occasions she wanted her family to move out of the violent neighborhood. She said her daughter was a sweet, smart girl.
Heaven is the 20th person under the age of 17 to be killed by gunfire in Chicago this year, reported the Chicago Tribune. 

Banks said she opened a candy stand on her block two weeks ago to keep kids close to their homes and away from gang crossfire. 

“I opened up the candy store for the kids so they wouldn't have to be pulled back and forth on the block because there’s been so much shooting,” Banks told the Chicago Tribune. “I figured they (gang members) know us, they wouldn’t come to the neighborhood and start shooting, but they really didn’t even care.” 

Banks said she believes the shooting is gang-related and Heaven was an unintended target. 

A 19-year-old man also was shot in the ankle and is listed in good condition at Loyola University Medical Center, NBCChicago.com reported.

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