9-year-old boy shot, killed on Near North Side: police

A 9-year-old boy was killed in a shooting Friday near the former Cabrini-Green housing projects on the Near North Side, Chicago police said.

About 6 p.m., the boy was in the 900 block of North Cambridge Avenue when he suffered a gunshot wound to the chest, police said.

He was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later, police said. The Cook County medical examiner’s office identified him as Janari Ricks, of River North, and an autopsy ruled his death a homicide.

In a news conference outside the hospital, CPD Chief of Operations Brian McDermott said “an unknown offender approached on foot and fired several rounds” in the direction of the 9-year-old and other bystanders.

McDermott said the boy “was an unintended target and we don’t know who the intended target was.”

He believed the boy, who he said lived in the area, was playing in a parking lot at the time he was shot. No one else was struck, though several rounds were fired, McDermott said.

“I’d like to offer my sincere condolences to the family of the victim,” McDermott said. “Anytime a child is the victim of gun violence in the city of Chicago ... it affects us all.”

No arrests have been reported. Area Three detectives are investigating.

The shooting is the second of a child in as many days in Chicago. Thursday night, an 8-year-old boy was among two people shot in Altgeld Gardens on the Far South Side.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.