Portage Park shooting death: 9 year old Chicago girl, Sarabi Medina playing with scooter shot dead by neighbor. No known motive.
A 9 year old Chicago girl playing outside her apartment was shot dead over the weekend by a neighbor.
Sarabi Medina was playing on her scooter with her father outside her apartment in Portage Park, Chicago, Saturday evening, when she was approached by a gunman and shot in the head at 8.40pm.
Witnesses said that the little girl had just got ice cream from a truck moments before she was shot. The girl who was previously reported as being eight was 9 years old according to fa
The assailant, Michael Goodman, 43, identified as a neighbor living on the same block was charged with first degree murder in the shooting.
Police said Goodman, who is known to police, walked up to a group of people and shot Medina in the head on the sidewalk outside her home.
When her father saw the gunman, he tried to stop him. During the struggle, witnesses said the Goodman was shot in the face with his own gun.
‘He saved other people because God only knows what that monster intended to do that night, how many lives he was going to take and if it wasn’t for Serabi’s father, it could be a lot more,’ relative Angee Gonzalez Rodriguez told ABC7Chicago.
The girl was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, where she died a short time later, police said.
Goodman was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition.
Goodman is due in bond court on Monday and is charged with first degree murder.
Victim of ongoing gun violence
Adding to the family’s tragedy, Medina’s mother, 29-year-old Blanca Miranda, was shot and killed in 2018 in an act of gun violence. Neighbors said the family moved to their Portage Park apartment shortly after her death.
Police said it remained unclear why the little girl was targeted.
‘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 they 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.’ local woman, Sue Kyser told ABC7 Chicago.
Those who knew Medina, who went by the nickname ‘Bibi,’ said she was going into fourth grade and was looking forward to the start of school.
‘No one should watch their kid get shot in front of them. That is wrong as a society,’ activist Flash ABC told ABC7 Chicago.
