Aug 27 (Reuters) - The cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade was killed in a shooting while she pushed her child in a stroller on the South Side of Chicago on Friday, local media reported.
Nykea Aldridge, 32, a mother of four, was shot in the head and arm by crossfire at about 3:30 p.m. local time on Friday in Chicago’s Parkway Gardens neighborhood near a school where she had gone to register her children, the Chicago Tribune reported on Saturday.
She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, the paper reported.
“My cousin was killed today in Chicago. Another act of senseless gun violence. Four kids lost their mom for no reason. Unreal,” Wade said in a post on Twitter.
Aldridge was the daughter of Wade’s mother’s sister, according to the Tribune.
Wade and his mother, Jolinda Wade, just this week spoke on an ESPN panel about gun violence in the United States and its effect on poverty-ridden places like the South Side of Chicago, where the majority of residents are black.
“We’re still going to try and help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction, so this thing won’t keep happening,” Jolinda Wade said outside of the hospital, according to ESPN.
In a city with as many as 90 shootings a week, homicides this year are on track to hit their highest level since 1997. Police were questioning a number of people in connection with Friday’s incident, the Tribune reported.
Wade, a 12-time NBA All-Star, signed a two-year, $47.5 million deal this summer with the Chicago Bulls, to live out his childhood dream to play for his hometown team.
Wade’s nephew Darin Johnson was one of six people shot by two gunmen in a South Side convenience store in 2012. The shooting left one dead, the Chicago Tribune said.
The three-time NBA world champion established the Dwyane Wade’s World Foundation, that supports children in at-risk situations.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Susan Fenton)