FILE- In this July 29, 2016, file photo, Chicago Bulls player Dwyane Wade speaks during a news conference in Chicago. A family spokesman says a cousin of Wade’s was fatally shot Friday, Aug. 25, while pushing a baby in a stroller on the city’s South Side. Wade posted on Twitter: “My cousin was killed today in Chicago. Another act of senseless gun violence. 4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON. Unreal.” (AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim, File)
CHICAGO — NBA star Dwyane Wade’s cousin was shot and killed in Chicago while pushing her baby in a stroller near a school where she intended to register her children. Wade took to Twitter to lament what he called another “act of senseless gun violence.”
Her family said Nykea Aldridge, 32, had recently relocated to the area on the city’s South Side. Chicago police said she was killed Friday when two males walked up and fired shots at a third man but hit Aldridge in the head and arm. She wasn’t the intended target, police said.
Family members are caring for the baby, who wasn’t hurt. Police said Friday evening that they were questioning witnesses in the shooting but had no suspects in custody.
Wade, a native of Chicago who signed with the Chicago Bulls in July after 13 years with the Miami Heat, posted on Twitter: “My cousin was killed today in Chicago. Another act of senseless gun violence. 4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON. Unreal. #EnoughISEnough.”
Chicago has been plagued by gun violence for years, especially in a few areas of the South and West sides of the city. A day earlier, Wade had participated via satellite in a town hall meeting in Chicago on gun violence hosted by ESPN, along with his mother, pastor Jolinda Wade.
Outside the emergency room where Aldridge was pronounced dead Friday, Jolinda Wade clutched Aldridge’s grief-stricken mother and spoke for the family as mourners stood in a circle holding hands and praying.
Jolinda Wade said she had participated in the town hall meeting on gun violence Thursday, “never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would actually be living and experiencing it.”
“We’re still going to try to help and empower people like the one who senselessly shot my niece in the head,” Jolinda Wade said. “We’re going to try to help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction.”
It is not the first time Dwyane Wade’s family in Chicago has been touched by gun violence.
His nephew, Darin Johnson, was shot twice in the leg in 2012 but recovered.
Chicago recorded 65 murders in July, the most seen during that month since 2006.
Chicago had recorded 381 homicides by the end of July, up 30 percent from the same period of 2015. Its murder rate is higher than the more populous cities of New York and Los Angeles.