Amaria Jones, Austin, Chicago 13 year old girl fatally shot in neck by stray bullet while showing mom TikTok dance moves. Shooting marks 102 shot and at least 90 wounded during recent Father’s Day weekend.
An Illinois 13 year old girl was killed Saturday when a stray bullet went through her home and struck her according to reports.
Amaria J. Jones, 13, of Austin was shot in the neck in her Chicago suburb apartment. Two boys, ages 15 and 16, were also wounded in the shooting episode. Jones died at a hospital some 30 minutes later, The Chicago Sun-News reports.
Lawanda Jones, the victim’s mother said her daughter was shot while showing her a TikTok dance. The stray bullet is said to have traveled through a ‘Chicago Lives Matter’ sign hanging from a window and a television before striking the teen girl in the right side of her neck.
‘I turned around and I was looking for her and she was on the ground reaching out like this, holding her neck,’ the mother told CBS Chicago. ‘I was like, what?! What?! What?!” Jones says she’s burdened by the fact that her last moments with her daughter are of Amaria reaching out for her with blood gushing from her neck.’
The 13-year-old had dreams of becoming an attorney according to her mother.
.@chicagosmayor we aren’t safe in our own homes! A 3y/o baby was shot last night! & this 13y/o child was killed in her own home! 2 other teens shot too.
We demand that you @GovPritzker @ToniPreckwinkle treat #GUNviolence like a public health crisis!#AmariaJones #SayHerName pic.twitter.com/WpruL923Or— GoodKidsMadCity (@GKMC18) June 21, 2020
‘You might sympathize with us, but you ain’t going to feel the pain until it actually happens.’
The 15- and 16-year-old boys were sitting outside the home when a man spotted a red laser pointing at him and gunshots rang out. Police said the 16-year-old was shot in the left leg, while the 15-year-old was shot in the lower back. Both boys were reportedly hospitalized and were in good condition.
While the two boys were shot outside the home and Amaria Jones was shot inside, reports did not disclose the unidentified man’s location at the time of the shooting or his possible relationship to the three teen shooting victims. It remained unclear who had been the intended shooting victims.
‘To the other parents whose kids got shot — my heart goes out to them too, because don’t nobody know what it’s like unless you are in these shoes, to lose a child,’ Lawanda Jones told CBS Local. ‘You might sympathize with us, but you ain’t going to feel the pain until it actually happens.’
Lawanda Jones also lost a nephew to gun violence one year ago, just three blocks from where her daughter was shot and killed this weekend.
Justice for Amaria
Jones is calling on the person who shot and killed her daughter this weekend to turn themselves in. She said the idea of burying her own daughter is often just too difficult to bear.
A motive remains unclear in the Austin shootings. No arrests have been made in connection with Saturday’s deadly shooting.
Of note fourteen people were killed with 102 shot and at least 90 wounded in Chicago citywide gun violence over the recent weekend. The 3 day window, starting from Friday night, ending Monday morning, marked the most shootings in a single weekend this year.
