Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed Saturday that the fatal shooting of NBA star Dwyane Wade's cousin is a reason why African-American voters will back his candidacy.

"Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago," Trump tweeted Saturday morning, misspelling the basketball player's first name. "Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!"

Nykea Aldridge was pushing a baby stroller Friday afternoon in Chicago's Parkway Gardens neighborhood when she was fatally wounded in an exchange of gunfire between two men. Police say she was not the intended target.

Trump has been making appeals to black voters, arguing that Democratic policies have made their lives so bad, "what the hell do you have to lose" by voting for him?

Actor Don Cheadle and other Trump critics Saturday pounced on the tweet, saying he was seizing on Aldridge's death and Chicago's gun violence for political gain. In a series of tweets — often employing pretty salty language — Cheadle blasted Trump as using the shooting to throw "red meat to his alt-right troglodytes."

"People of Drumpf's ilk are contributors to the conditions that lead to the 'Chicagos' of this country," Cheadle said in one tweet, referring to the surname of Trump's German ancestors.

The election, Cheadle added in another tweet, "is like a Shakespearean farce except it could end in a mushroom cloud."

Trump did not respond to Cheadle's Twitter storm, but by early Saturday afternoon, Trump's original tweet was gone, and a nearly identical version had been posted, this time correcting the spelling of Wade's first name.

Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, took note, tweeting out a screen capture of both versions.

A little later Saturday afternoon, Trump added his condolences to Wade and his family. "They are in my thoughts and prayers," he said.