FLINT, MI -- Police are searching for the person responsible for the shooting death of a 7-year-old girl Tuesday night on Flint's north side.

Officers with the Flint Police Department were called out around 8 p.m. to the 200 block of West Austin Avenue, between Chestnut Street and Martin Luther King Avenue, for a shooting incident.

The girl, identified as Zaniyah Dashay Burns, was found shot in the head. She was later pronounced dead.

Flint police Chief Tim Johnson said the girl's 16-year-old uncle was the intended target of the shooting. Michigan State Police troopers assisted at the scene. No suspect information was immediately available.

The home where the shooting occurred is next to an open field and police believe several shots were fired at the home from across the field, Johnson noted, while expressing some dismay at the situation in the city.

"When anybody loses their life it's tough. The harder we fight the more...comes down the pipe," he commented. "We need 50 to 100 more officers. Something has got to give. I've asked city council. I push those officers as hard as I can."

The incident remains under investigation.

Anyone with information may contact the Flint Police Department at 810-237-6800 or report a tip anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-422-JAIL (5245) or the P3 Tips app.

If you have ANY information on the #Flint #homicide that took place last night, taking the life of a 7-year-old little... Posted by Crime Stoppers of Flint & Genesee County on Wednesday, October 10, 2018

MLive-The Flint Journal reporter Dominic Adams contributed to this report.