By Alex Dobuzinskis
(Reuters) – A 13-year-old Milwaukee girl who won an award for an essay deploring gun violence in the city has been killed by a stray bullet while inside her home, police and local media said.
Sandra Parks received a third-place plaque for an entry she wrote in 2016 for a Milwaukee writing competition, in which she lamented that “little children are victims of senseless gun violence” in the Midwest city, and that she witnessed “chaos almost every day.”
Citing a criminal complaint, local television station Fox6 Now said Parks was killed in her bedroom on Monday after a man outside shot at “an unknown target” using an assault-style rifle.
“She didn’t cry. She wasn’t hollering. She was just so peaceful,” her mother, Bernice Parks, told Fox6 Now. “She didn’t deserve to leave the world like that.”
Police said a 26-year-old man, Isaac Barnes, was arrested in connection with the girl’s death. On Wednesday, he was charged with first-degree reckless homicide with a dangerous weapon and other offenses, another television station, WISN, reported.
A second man, Untrell Oden, 27, was also arrested and accused of keeping Barnes’ firearms at his home. He was charged with being a felon in possession of a gun.
Attorneys for Barnes or Oden could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Frances Kerry)
