Ashake Banks said she opened a candy stand on the street of her North Austin block two weeks ago to keep kids close to their homes and maybe away from gang crossfire.
Late Wednesday night, Banks' 7-year-old daughter Heaven was sitting next to Banks as she sold snacks and snow cones when someone opened fire down the street around 10:45 p.m. A stray bullet hit the little girl as she ran back to her house in the 1700 block of North Luna Avenue, police and family say.
Heaven was shot in the back and died half an hour later.
"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 said this morning. "I figured they (gang members) know us, they wouldn't come to the neighborhood and start shooting, but they really didn't even care.
"She looked forward every day to opening up the candy store, and for somebody just to come take her life, it's not right," Banks said.
She said the block was filled with children playing when two men came out out a gangway and one of them started shooting at a group of people standing on the sidewalk near the candy stand. "We're just sitting out here, normal, she's sitting next to me and I just heard shooting," Banks told WGN-TV.
Banks said she threw herself to the ground while her daughter ran for the family's home. Moments later, Banks said she found her daughter unconscious inside a hallway.
"I'm lost for words. That was my pride and joy," Banks said. The little girl had been looking forward to going to Disney World next month. "She just got her hair done, she was going to Disney World."
A 19-year-old man, described by police as a gang member, was wounded in the ankle and taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, police said. The girl was pronounced dead there at 11:16 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Heaven is the 20th person under the age of 17 to be killed by gunfire in Chicago this year, according to a Tribune crime analysis.
Police recently released statistics showing the number of Chicago Public School students shot this past school year -- 319 -- was the highest in four years. The toll from last weekend's gun violence in the city included the deaths of two boys, 13 and 14.
The Austin community, which includes the North Austin neighborhood, has seen 16 homicides so far this year -- four in the last week.
Banks said her daughter was frightened by all the violence around her home and had pleaded with her to move out. "She would say, 'Mom, let's move.' "
Banks had a message for the gangs in her neighborhood. "You all cannot just get away with killing my baby," she said. "You all took her life."
William Lee is a reporter for the Tribune, Jae Miller is a reporter for WGN-TV
????
Damn shame