Hadiya Pendleton was the friendly girl with the sweet presence at King College Prep in Chicago, one of the top 10 selective enrollment schools. She was a majorette and a volleyball player who had performed with other King College students at President Barack Obama’s inaugural events.

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But on Tuesday, her life was cut short by a bullet.

Her last tweet, posted just a day before, read “I’m tired.”

Pendleton and a 16-year-old boy wounded in the attack were shot in a park near the school about 2:20 p.m., in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue, police said.

Most of those who were in the park were gang members, and those in the group did not stay on scene to help after the shootings, according to police.

The boy remains in serious condition. He was also a student at King.

The incident began when the students decided to hang out at a park, just blocks from their high school on the South Side, after they had taken their exams. A friend of Pendleton’s explained that they had been let out early from school, and decided to hang out near the park, which is something they rarely did.

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Neighbors said students from King do occasionally hang out at Harsh Park and that students were there that afternoon before the shooting took place.

A group of 10 to 12 teens at the park had taken shelter under a canopy there during a rainstorm when a boy or man jumped a fence in the park, ran toward the group and opened fire, police said in a statement this evening.

The attacker then got into an automobile and fled the scene.

Those in the group were not cooperating with police, however, and investigators had no detailed descriptions yet of either the attacker or the vehicle in which he left. Central Area detectives were investigating, and they had no one in custody as of about 8:20 p.m.

Police at first believed both victims’ conditions had stabilized by a little after 3 p.m., said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala. But unfortunately, Pendleton passed away from her wounds.

At this time we are keeping Pendleton’s family and friends in our thoughts and prayers. This senseless gun violence has to stop. The time is now.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune





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