Baby Dies After Woodlawn Shooting; ‘Senseless, Despicable Act’

CHICAGO (CBS) – A 6-month-old girl died Tuesday morning, hours after she and her father were shot multiple times while he was changing her diaper in the family van in the Woodlawn neighborhood — a crime the mayor described as “a senseless, despicable act.”

Jonylah Watkins died at the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital on Tuesday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. She had been in the hospital’s intensive care unit, after undergoing surgery for multiple gunshot wounds on Monday.

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Tuesday that the shooting is very likely gang related, but police don’t have a strong witness at this point. Investigators believe Jonathan Watkins was targeted, and Jonylah was an innocent victim of warring gangs.

“This is another tragedy, because no child – and certainly not an infant – should be the victim of gang violence,” McCarthy said. “There are going to be good days, and there’s gonna be bad days, and today is obviously a bad day.”

Rev. Corey Brooks, who was acting as a family spokesman, said Jonylah was shot five times — including her lungs, liver, intestines, leg, and shoulder.

Jonylah and her father, Jonathan Watkins, were shot Monday afternoon as Watkins was standing in the open passenger’s door to a minivan, changing Jonylah’s diaper in the 6500 block of South Maryland Avenue. A gunman approached him from behind, and opened fire.

Watkins was shot in the side and the left buttock, and suffered a graze wound to the face, police said. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was in serious but stable condition on Tuesday.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel seemed frustrated that successful efforts to curb gun violence in some neighborhoods can’t keep shocking crimes like Jonylah’s shooting from occurring.