7-Year-Old Girl Shot In The Neck While Trick-Or-Treating

A 7-year-old girl dressed as a bumblebee ended up being critically injured after she was shot in the neck while out on trick-or-treating in Halloween, Chicago police said.

The incident happened at around 5:30 p.m on the Southwest side of Little Village neighborhood in Chicago on Thursday evening. The girl was walking on the sidewalk of West 26th Street with other trick-or-treaters when a group of men from the other side of the street drew a gun and opened fire.

The girl was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, Larry Langford, a Fire Department spokesman, said.

A 31-year-old man who was walking closeby was also shot in the left hand and was taken to a hospital.

The group of men was chasing a man on the street when the shooting happened, police said. The girl may have been an unindented victim, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, said.

"We heard the shots... four shots, and I went outside," Lali Lara, who works at a cellphone store nearby, told Chicago Tribune. "The girl’s father was screaming, 'My little girl’s been shot.'"

She brought the girl inside her store in an attempt to keep her alive, while they waited for the ambulance.

Investigators had no description of the gunman but they are relying on surveillance footage from the scene.

"A 7-year-old girl that was trick-or-treating with her family had to get shot because a group of guys want to shoot at another male," Sergeant Rocco Alioto said.

In a similar incident, three men were shot and nine were injured at a Halloween party in Long Beach, California on Tuesday night, the Long Beach Fire Department, said. The injured people were aged between 20 and 49 and the three deceased men were reportedly in their mid-20s. At least 25 people were attending the party, the police said.