Chicago shootings: 13-year-old Amaria Jones was dancing at home when she was killed by a gunman on the loose

The teenager was one among 13 people, including 5 children, who died in Chicago over the Father’s Day weekend

UPDATED JUN 26, 2020

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: A 13-year-old girl died after a bullet pierced the window of her family home and struck her neck. Amaria Jones was one among 102 people who were shot in Chicago over the Father’s Day weekend. Thirteen of those who were killed in the incident, between Friday evening (June 19) and 5 a.m. Monday (June 22), included at least five children. Amaria was one of those children.

According to CBS 2, the teenager was showing her mother a new dance move she had seen online, at their West Side home on Saturday, June 20, when a gunman, who has not been arrested yet, shot the bullet that eventually killed her. “She was showing me this dance called TikTok,” Amaria’s mother, Lawanda Jones, said.

Amaria, who had dreams of becoming an attorney, was at her family’s home in the 1000 block of North Leclaire Avenue in the South Austin community when the bullet came through the window, went right through the family television, and struck her in the neck. “I turned around and I was looking for her and she was on the ground reaching out like this, holding her neck. I was like, what?! What?! What?! The last thought that I have of my baby is her reaching out with blood gushing out her neck,” Lawanda said.

The grieving mother also said that she took membership in a club this weekend to which she never wanted to join. “No one wants to be a member of burying their child. It’s supposed to be is — them burying us, not us burying them,” Lawanda added.

It has been reported that on Saturday, at around 8:36 p.m., the shooting happened. Police said that two teenage boys were sitting on the porch when a third person saw a red laser light pointed at him and heard multiple gunshots. The boys - ages 15 and 16 - who were outside were shot that evening including Amaria.

As per police, the 16-year-old was hit in the left leg while the 15-year-old boy was shot in the lower back. Both the boys were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition. But Amaria, who got the bullet in the right side of her neck, was taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County in critical condition. She did not survive and died about half an hour later at the hospital.

“They talk about police killing — killing our citizens. They’re killing each other off. Our kids are not safe no more. Period. You can’t sit on your porch. You can’t even be in your own house. You’ll get killed,” Lawanda said. The mother sent out a message for other parents too who lost their children on the deadly Father’s Day weekend in Chicago. “To the other parents whose kids got shot — my heart goes out to them too, because don’t nobody know what it’s like unless you are in these shoes, to lose a child. You might sympathize with us, but you ain’t going to feel the pain until it actually happens,” she stated.

Meanwhile, a vigil was held on Monday in remembrance of Amaria and Mekhi James, a three-year-old child, who was hit by a bullet in the back and killed as he rode in the back seat of his stepfather’s car. The child was shot a couple of hours earlier before Amaria was shot.