More children are victims of Chicago’s gunfire, gang battles

In this Tuesday, July 19, 2016 photo, Kavan Collins, 4, stands on his father's porch in Chicago. Collins was shot on June 28, 2016, while holding his mother's hand on the city's South Side. One of the bullets had struck him in his face, fracturing his jaw. With a spike in killings and shootings this year in Chicago, statistics show more bullets are hitting children as they do normal kid things like play with sparklers, draw on the sidewalk or hold a mother’s hand. (AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim) In this Tuesday, July 19, 2016 photo, Kavan Collins, 4, stands on his father's porch in Chicago. Collins was shot on June 28, 2016, while holding his mother's hand on the city's South Side. One of the bullets had struck him in his face, fracturing his jaw. With a spike in killings and shootings this year in Chicago, statistics show more bullets are hitting children as they do normal kid things like play with sparklers, draw on the sidewalk or hold a mother’s hand. (AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim)

By Associated Press July 20, 2016 4 min read

CHICAGO (AP) – The Chicago mother thought she knew when it was safe to take her children outside, that she could protect them by sizing up and avoiding the people whom trouble seemed to follow.

Then a bullet fired from a gun that D’Antignay Brashear never saw pierced the cheek of her 4-year-old son, Kavan Collins. It fractured the boy’s jaw and shattered some teeth before it went out his other cheek, all while he held his mother’s hand.

“He was with his mother, and it wasn’t like I was doing something wrong, having him out after hours,” said Brashear, a 21-year-old single mother of two, referring to the shooting that happened before sundown June 28 on Chicago’s South Side. “I thought he was safe.”

Kavan is part of a growing roster of children who have been shot in the city this year amid a spike in killings and shootings. More than 330 killings have occurred in the city.

So far, no child has died from the gunfire that’s often connected to gangs. Children have been struck while doing normal kid things like playing with sparklers, drawing on the sidewalk or holding a mother’s hand.