Girl, 12, Killed and Man Wounded in Shooting on Chicago's West Side

Family members said the girl was visiting from Michigan and was returning from a graduation party when she was shot in the neck

A 12-year-old girl was killed and a man was wounded in a shooting on Chicago's West Side Thursday night, according to police.

Authorities said the shooting took place at around 11:20 p.m. in the 4200 block of West Wilcox Street in the city's West Garfield Park neighborhood.

The two victims were outside at a gathering when the 36-year-old man heard shots and realized he had been hit in the leg, officials said.

The young girl, who family members said was the cousin of the man's wife, was shot in the neck, according to police.

Authorities said both were taken to Stroger Hospital, where the man's condition stabilized and the girl was pronounced dead.

Police said it did not appear as though the victims were the intended targets of the shooting, and witnesses said they saw two unknown men firing shots near the scene.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's office did not immediately confirm the fatality, but relatives identified the girl as She’Nyah O’Flynn.

Devastated family members said she was visiting Chicago from Covert, Michigan, and had just arrived in the city Tuesday to spend the summer with her father. 

She was returning home from a graduation party when she was killed, family said. They had just gotten out the car, relatives said, when they heard what they thought were fireworks but were actually gunshots.

Family said She'Nyah was shot in the neck as she held a 1-year-old baby girl, who was not injured in the shooting.

Back in Michigan, her mother and aunt got the phone call that she had been shot and drove straight through the night to the hospital. 

"She'Nyah, that was like my daughter. I got her tattooed on my wrist," her aunt Courtney O'Flynn said, sharing photos of the young girl she said loved hip-hop and dance, played soccer and got good grades. 

"Every day when I came home from school, that was my baby," her aunt continued. "That was my best friend."

Along with community activist Andrew Holmes, her relatives pleaded for help in catching the gunman.

"This family is traumatized," Holmes said, asking for anyone who may have surveillance footage or cell phone video to come forward.

"They need to be brought to justice, because it’s an innocent little baby," said Derrick Langford, a cousin of the man shot. "She didn’t get a chance to live her life and her life was just taken over some stupidity."

No one is in custody in connection with the shooting, as authorities continue to investigate.

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