Chicago police on Tuesday released images of a vehicle they believe was used in the fatal shooting of an 8-year-old girl and said the Labor Day attack, which injured three others, was likely gang-related and targeted someone in the car the girl was riding in.
Dajore Wilson, 8, was identified as the girl shot on Union Avenue near 47th Street in the Canaryville neighborhood as she sat in a car with her mother and others.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference Tuesday morning, police Superintendent David Brown and his chief of detectives, Brendan Deenihan, pleaded for the community to step forward and help detectives solve the girl’s slaying.
“It’s possible that other people that were in this vehicle were the targets. Obviously the 8-year-old was not,” Deenihan said. “It doesn’t appear that it was a random act. It appears that the people from this vehicle were definitely targeting someone in that car or someone they thought should have been in that car. So it’s ongoing gang-on-gang or group-on-group violence.”
Dajore was one of three people shot about 5:55 p.m. Monday. She was killed and three adults were injured but expected to survive.
A 31-year-old man, who according to sources is Dajore’s father, likely was the intended target, the sources said. He was among those injured. Dajore’s mother, 30, suffered injuries possibly from broken glass, authorities said.
Dajore had been set to begin third grade on Tuesday at a Chicago Public School not far from her home, according to a source. The girl has a twin brother, according to Cook County records, a boy who was not reported to have been in the vehicle.
Brown offered similar talking points Tuesday as he has in other weekly news conferences during the especially violent summer of 2020, offering condolences to the girl’s family, highlighting the number of guns confiscated by his officers over the holiday weekend and lamenting what he called a “catch-and-release” justice system that allows arrested suspects back on the streets too quickly.
But he also spoke from personal experience.
“Getting notified about another child being a victim of gun violence is one of the most painful experiences, not only as a law enforcement professional but also as a parent,” said Brown, whose adult son was killed in a shootout with police in suburban Dallas in 2010after he fatally shot a cop and another man.
“We are once again asking for the community’s help and partnership to bring this killer to justice,” Brown said of the suspect in Dajore’s slaying.
Deenihan said there’s no definitive motive in the case, but there’s been an ongoing gang conflict in the area of the shooting for an “extended period of time.”
Earlier Tuesday, police had issued a community alert about the shooting that included two images of a black, four-door sedan with tinted windows. The license plate number was obscured and not released by police. Police earlier had said the car was a black Dodge Charger.
“This alert gives notice that the vehicle shown above was used during the commission of a homicide of an 8-year-old child,” it said. Officials also said the shooter or shooters were seen in the vehicle “both prior to and immediately after the homicide.”
Karie James, a spokeswoman for police, said there was no additional information about the shooter or shooters such as a physical description or the clothing they last were seen wearing. Police radio traffic had given a description of the shooter’s clothing, but police did not confirm that information Tuesday.
Before the shooting, the car the girl was in was stopped at a red light at 47th Street facing north, with another vehicle, the black Dodge Charger, behind it, said Brian McDermott, chief of operations for the Police Department. When the light turned green, someone in the Charger opened fire, he said.
The car the girl was in kept going north and crashed into a tree, and the Charger turned around and headed south on Union, McDermott said.
Police officials said the extended Labor Day weekend was more violent than the same holiday weekend last year. This year at least 51 people were shot, nine fatally, according to data kept by the Tribune. In 2019, 44 people were shot, nine of them fatally. This weekend was the most violent Labor Day weekend in Chicago since 2016 — the most violent year in decades — when 63 people were shot, 13 of them fatally, according to Tribune data.
But Brown said Chicago has seen overall drops in homicides and shootings since the Police Department seven weeks ago started its two new citywide units tasked with, among other things, responding to crime hot spots. The community safety team has about 300 officers concentrating on crime spikes on the South and West sides, while the critical incident response team, made up of about 250 cops, focuses on crime downtown.
However, Brown disclosed that a third, similar unit that has been operating since late May and was set to dissolve by the end of summer, the summer mobile patrol unit, would continue to be deployed for about 90 days. That unit has about 200 officers.
“We’re looking to find ways to grow … the community safety team,” said Brown, “whether that’s absorbing summer mobile or just doing a very, it’s a very technical labor term of just asking for more volunteers to join the team or drafting more volunteers to join the team.”
Anyone with information about Dajore’s shooting or the shooters is asked to call investigators at 312-747-8380. If the vehicle is seen, the alert also asks that the public, “call 911 immediately and provide a detailed description of the (occupants) including any vehicle description and license plate information.”
Chicago Tribune’s Paige Fry and Peter Nickeas contributed.
kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
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