Chicago Shootings: 12-, 13-Year-Old Girls Wounded In Drive-By Shooting In Pullman

Two young girls were caught in crossfire around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday on Chicago's Far South Side, sending both to the hospital.

The girls, aged 12 and 13, were walking in the 1300 block of West 117th Street when an individual inside a passing car opened fire toward them, NBC Chicago reports.

The 13-year-old girl was shot in the buttocks and was treated and released at an area hospital Tuesday evening, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Her 12-year-old friend was shot twice and hospitalized in serious condition.

Police do not believe the girls were the targets of the shooting, according to ABC Chicago. Police are attributing the shooting to feuding rival gangs in the area.

Mildred Shorter, the mother of the wounded 13-year-old girl, told the Chicago Tribune that she is angered by area gun violence.

"The gun violence, it has to stop," Shorter told the newspaper. "These were grammar school kids, walking, just trying to live as young ladies. ... It could have been anybody's child. Those are all of our children."

In another shooting Tuesday evening, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the left knee around 10:30 p.m. in the city's Roseland neighborhood, the Sun-Times reports.

Last month, Chicago Public Schools reported the highest number of students wounded by firearms in four years. During the 2011-12 school year, 24 CPS students were killed and 319 others wounded in shootings. Citywide, the number of homicides and shootings alike are both up markedly over the previous year.

Despite the spike of gun violence, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy defended their crime-fighting tactics, particularly their new strategy on Chicago gangs, in a Monday press conference.