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CHICAGO — An 8-year-old Chicago girl who was walking with her mother when she was shot in the head and killed by a gunman targeting someone else on the city’s Southwest Side has been identified.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office identified the victim Sunday as Melissa Ortega of Chicago. A police report said she was walking on the street with her mother Saturday afternoon when someone fired shots at a gang member who was leaving a nearby store, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The girl was pronounced dead Saturday at a hospital. The man police believe was the target was shot in the back and hospitalized in critical condition. No one was in custody Sunday in connection with the shooting.
The shooting happened amid a spike in homicides in Chicago. Last year was the city’s deadliest in a quarter century, with roughly 800 homicides. Melissa was a student at Emiliano Zapata Academy, an elementary school in the city’s heavily-Mexican Little Village neighborhood, according to the Chicago Teachers Union.