A little girl playing with her mum and siblings was shot dead by a stranger in a balaclava in her own home.
Read that again. If you can stand it, try to imagine the terror of the desperate seconds before that fatal shot, as her mum tried to keep the lethal violence unfolding outside from spilling into her house.
The last moments of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel should send shivers down the spine of any decent person in Merseyside who cares about the communities they live in. That disgust, anger and revulsion is needed now to help bring those responsible for this atrocity to justice.
READ MORE: Men left little girl to die as they rushed friend to hospital after shooting
READ MORE: Olivia Pratt-Korbel had 'beautiful smile and always wanted to help others'
Four people have been murdered in Merseyside in just a week - one of them a nine-year-old girl.
The shocking events of the past seven days don’t define our city, but we have a serious problem - and it’s time we faced up to it.
Fifteen years ago the eyes of the world were on Liverpool after 11-year-old Rhys Jones was gunned down as he walked home from football practice.
Today the TV crews are back after the death of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, who was shot dead by a gunman who burst into her Dovecot home.
On the same night Kirkby nan Karen Dempsey was stabbed to death apparently trying to break up a fight outside a local pub.
Only yesterday the devastated family of Knowsley council worker Ashley Dale paid tribute to the 28-year-old, shot dead by a gunman who forced his way into her Old Swan home.
Sam Rimmer was murdered on the streets of Dingle, the shots fired by four men riding bikes.
Liverpool is a city famous for showing strength and solidarity when times are tough. Right now the family of an innocent nine-year-old schoolgirl desperately needs to feel that solidarity and is in desperate need of answers and justice. It is incumbent on all of us to do whatever we can to help them achieve it.
It is important to point out that police, youth services, education and other support systems we rely on have been cut time and time again. No-one should underestimate the impact of neglect from those in power nationally who have shown scant regard for the everyday challenges people face.
But, right now, in the aftermath of tragedies which truly can be described as senseless, those issues are for another day. Today those who know the truth behind these crimes face a simple choice - are they on the side of the victims, on the side of Liverpool, or on the side of those who take lives indiscriminately?
For too long an ‘anti-grass’ culture has infiltrated areas of this city. People who know vital information about horrific crimes and those who have committed them will choose to keep it to themselves out of some misguided sense of loyalty or the foolish idea of a code.
But today we ask, where is the loyalty to the family of a nine-year-old school child who was shot dead in cold blood inside her family home? Where is the loyalty to her distraught parents and loving family who will never get to see her grow up and achieve everything they dreamed of?
This is the time to choose where your loyalties lie. You owe nothing to a cold-blooded killer, happy to burst into a family home and spray bullets at an innocent child - and to leave her there dying. The only people you owe anything to are those trying to come to terms with her senseless loss.
READ MORE:
Live updates as schoolgirl shot dead and two others injured
Woman, 28, shot dead in garden 'was not intended target'
Liverpool wakes up to devastating news of schoolgirl's murder as tributes flood in
Tip-offs 'flowing in' after 'little man Sam' shot dead in street
Witness describes 'sinister threats' at house near murder scene
