The Latest: 1 of 2 girls wounded in weekend shootings dies

CHICAGO – The Latest on violence in Chicago (all times local):

6:45 p.m.

One of two girls who were shot in the head in separate weekend shootings on Chicago’s South Side has died.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office says 11-year-old Takiya Holmes died early Tuesday at Comer Children’s Hospital.

The girl was sitting with her mother and younger brother in the family’s minivan when someone opened fire at about 7:40 p.m. Saturday. About a half hour earlier, 12-year-old Kanari Gentry-Bowers was shot in the head while playing basketball at an elementary school in the city’s West Englewood neighbourhood.

Police say neither girl was the intended target and that both were struck by stray bullets fired in areas of heavy gang activity.

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3:15 p.m.

Chicago police say a small child and a man were shot and killed and a woman injured when someone walked up to the vehicle they were in and opened fire in what police say they believe was a “gang hit’ on the man.

Department spokesman says the woman was rushed to an area hospital after the 1:30 p.m. shooting in the Little Village neighbourhood on the city’s West side and is now in fair condition.

Guglielmi says that he does not know whether the 2 or 3-year-old toddler was a boy or a girl. He did not release the name of the 26-year-old man who was killed but said he had a lengthy arrest record and was well known to police as a documented gang member.

Guglielmi says no arrests have been made.

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2:45 p.m.

Chicago police say a small child and a woman are in grave condition and a man is dead after someone walked up to a vehicle they were in and opened fire with a gun.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says the shooting happened at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Little Village neighbourhood on the city’s West Side. He did not have the names of the people who were shot and did not immediately know their relationship to each other.

He says the child is 2 or 3 years old. He says the man who died was in his 20s and the woman is also believed to be in her 20s. Police say no arrests have been made.

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12:55 p.m.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner will push for state funding to put more state troopers on Chicago-expressways in an effort to combat gun violence.

Rauner’s office confirms a Chicago Sun-Times report that during his planned budget speech Wednesday the governor will say he wants the state to pay for 200 state police cadets over the next two years.

Last year in Chicago there were 762 homicides and more than 3,500 shooting incidents — totals that far eclipsed those in 2015. At the same time, the number of shootings on Chicago-area expressways rose significantly. Authorities say that’s because gang violence plaguing Chicago was spilling onto those highways.

Rauner also said last month during his State of the State address that he was committed to hiring more troopers to patrol Chicago expressways.