A Chicago mother made the ultimate sacrifice for her baby.
The 24-year-old was shot to death Tuesday morning as she was holding her 1-year-old child, who was not harmed thanks to what friends described as her heroic actions.
The victim, who friends identified as Brittany Hill, was getting out of her black sedan around 8:50 a.m. when a silver car drove down the street and began shooting at her, according to Chicago police spokeswoman Kellie Bartoli. She was struck multiple times and driven by two witnesses to West Suburban Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 9:25 a.m.
“The incident was not a random act of violence,” Bartoli said. No arrests have been made.
The child managed to come away from the incident unharmed, Bartoli said. Hill was credited with saving her child from the bullets.
“When Brittany was shot, she shielded her baby, was hit and fell protecting her. She survived and will have to grow up without her mother,” community activist Ja’mal Green wrote on Twitter.
“I’ve lost so many friends to gun violence I can only imagine the trauma the younger generation is dealing with.. the only thing you can do is cherish your friends and family.. you never know when it will hit home!”
Green and Hill were friends and attended high school together, he said.
Larry Jones, the baby’s great-grandfather, told ABC7 he heard the gunfire on the street and ran out to find “Brittany laying in the street.” He said she had been talking to her boyfriend, the baby’s father, who was sitting in the car.
