16-year-old girl killed, friend wounded while walking to Englewood party. ‘What can we let our kids do without them getting hurt?’
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It was Aniya Williams’ second time riding the CTA.
Charmaine Akins usually drives her 15-year-old daughter to and from school and anywhere she needs to go. But she thought it would be okay to let her take the train from Riverdale to see friends in Englewood Monday night.
Aniya was with a group of girlfriends, walking from a Red Line station just after 10 p.m., when someone opened fire in the 300 block of West 72nd Street.
They ran to a yard nearby, only to realize one of their friends was missing. Aniya ran back to find her 16-year-old best friend unresponsive on the sidewalk.
She had been shot in the back and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she died, police said.
Aniya suffered a graze wound to the left arm and went to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was listed in good condition, police said.
“Physically she is okay but mentally she is not,” Atkins told the Sun-Times. “She said she can’t get the images out of her head, and that hurts as a parent because you don’t know what to do.”
Akins spent Tuesday morning working to schedule therapy appointments for her daughter in hopes of helping her heal before the school year.
But Aniya told her mother she does not even want to leave the house.
“My daughter was on honor roll, she takes AP classes, and the second time that I let her go outside, this is what happens,” Akins said. “This morning she asked me if she could do home school…she said she’s never stepping outside.”
This is the third friend Williams has lost to gun violence just this year, her mother said.
“When is it going to stop?” Akins said. “My baby said she doesn’t even want to be here no more. Do you know how hurtful it is to hear your child say she doesn’t want to be here no more when you work so hard to get those types of thoughts out of her head because she’s constantly losing people?”
The shooting occurred just days after gunmen opened fire on a group of women attending a birthday party in North Lawndale. Kanesha Gaines, 21, was killed and eight other people were wounded.
“We’ve got to let our kids live, but when we let our kids leave we take the risk of burying our kids,” Akins said.
“[Aniya] said they were on the train and on the bus, laughing and taking pictures, and they didn’t even make it to where they were going before somebody got to shooting at them,” Akins said. “And nobody has answers ... The only way we keep our kids save is by keeping them in the house ... You can’t let them go outside, you can’t let them walk to the store, you can’t let them go to school ... What can we let our kids do without them getting hurt?”
As of Tuesday, there was no one in custody for either shooting.
Rosemary Sobol contributed.