An eight-year-old Chicago girl was shot and killed by a neighbour after he complained about children making too much noise outside his home, according to officials.
Sarabi Medina was shot in the head by Michael Goodman as she rode her scooter home after getting ice cream, police said.
The 43-year-old suspect, who is known to authorities, allegedly walked up to a group of people in the Portage Park neighbourhood on Saturday evening before opening fire.
During a struggle that ensued with the victim’s father, the suspect was hit in the face with a bullet from his own gun. Sabrina was rushed to Stroger Hospital in critical condition where she died a short time later, police said.
Mr Goodman was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition and has been charged with first-degree murder.
“You killed an innocent child, an innocent baby girl for what reason? Now these parents have to mourn their baby and everything else, and every time you turn around and look, they’ll know it was across the street. Nobody’s going to let their kids come around here and play. People aren’t going to take their kids to this park because they are terrified. We just wanted to pay our respects to her and to her family. But it’s just crazy,” Sue Kyser, who lives in the neighbourhood, told ABC7.
The family had moved to Portage Park after the youngster’s mother, 29-year-old Bianca Miranda, was shot and killed in 2018.
Neighbour Megan Kelley said that the suspect had confronted the victim and her father about noise before the fatal incident.
“Yesterday, when he came out, before he shot her, he had said something about them being too loud,” she told The Chicago Sun-Times.
And she added: “Just little kids playing, he would come out just yelling about the noise. It just didn’t make sense, none of it made sense.”
“Everybody in the community would just tell him they are just kids having fun playing, just let them be.”
