Chicago

Chicago Mother Loses Daughter to Violence One Week After Sister's Death

"Two losses in seven days and two hours and 40 seconds"

Brandy Martin was still grieving the loss of her sister when she received the dreaded phone call no mother wants to hear. 

"Two losses in seven days and two hours and 40 seconds," she said. 

Police told Martin her 22-year-old daughter had been fatally shot in the head in the city's Fuller Park neighborhood. 

"I'm like devastated," Martin told NBC Chicago Monday. 

Police said Akeelah Addison was a party just before 3 a.m. Friday in the 4200 block of South Wells when she was fatally shot - one of six people killed over the long holiday weekend that also left more than 60 others wounded. 

"My daughter, she was an entrepreneur. Beautiful, smart, educated," Martin said. 

A week earlier, Martin's sister was killed by a Chicago Transit Authority Red Line train after she dropped her phone on the tracks and tried to retrieve it. 

The Fourth of July weekend violence saw a "considerable increase from last year." 

Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said the shootings were concentrated on the city's South and West Sides. 

"Weekend likes this, we cannot continue to see," Johnson said. "Our city deserves better. Police cannot do it alone." 

Police said no one is in custody in connection with Addison's shooting and an investigation. 

Martin, who is now planning two funerals, pleaded for witnesses to her daughter's murder to come forward. 

"We have come accustomed to our children dying in these streets," she said. 

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