A local group dedicated to fighting against gun violence in Chicago is offering a reward, and a little girl’s family is pleading for information after she was shot while riding in a vehicle on the Bishop Ford Expressway early Monday morning.
“She was too young to deserve this,” Sariyah Henry, the girl’s aunt, said Monday.
“I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot,” founded by Chicago businessman and philanthropist Early Walker, put up the reward money during a press conference on Monday night.
“This family wants answers,” Walker said during a press conference Monday. “We are putting up $10,000 on behalf of this family, and we are urging the shooter to turn themselves in.”
The girl’s grandmother reached out to the organization for help shortly after the shooting, according to a press release, and the group quickly offered up the reward money to help gather information to locate and prosecute the shooter.
According to the Illinois State Police, the girl was a passenger in a vehicle traveling northbound on the Bishop Ford Expressway near 115th Street at approximately 11:15 a.m. when the driver of the vehicle heard a single gunshot. The driver then looked in the backseat and saw that the girl had been hit by the shot, and quickly rushed her to an area hospital.
The infant girl, identified as Ny’ori Askew, was critically injured in the shooting, according to state police. Her condition has stabilized, but her family says she is still crying out in pain as she’s being treated at the hospital.
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The expressway was closed for nearly an hour as state police scoured the roadway for evidence in the aftermath of the shooting. No suspects are currently in custody.
The shooting is hardly an isolated incident when it comes to violence on area roadways. Illinois State Police officials told NBC 5 Investigates that there have been at least 65 expressway shootings already in 2020, exceeding the total number that there were in all of 2019.
Now, the girl’s family is hoping that the shooter, or witnesses, will come forward to help solve yet another senseless shooting on area highways.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Illinois State Police at 847-294-4400.
