A 7-year-old girl was killed and her father was seriously wounded in a shooting Sunday afternoon as they were getting food at a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Homan Square neighborhood.
The father, Jontae Adams, 28, and his daughter, Jaslyn, were in a silver Infiniti about 4:20 p.m. at the McDonald’s, 3200 W. Roosevelt Road, when they were shot, Chicago police said. A McDonald’s employee, who asked not to be named, said two people got out of a gray car and started shooting at the victim’s car.
Jontae Adams frantically called his mother, Lawanda McMullen, after the shooting.
“He said, ‘Ma, come get me. They just shot my baby,’” McMullen recalled.
The girl, who has three siblings, was shot repeatedly and was taken by police officers to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Her father was shot in the torso and also taken to Stroger, where his condition was listed as serious, police said.
Police said the shooting was believed to be gang-related, and less than three hours later, two people were shot in their car at a Popeyes in Humboldt Park, which investigators believe is connected to the McDonald’s shooting.
A 33-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman were in a blue Chevy Malibu, having just ordered food, at the Popeyes drive-thru window at Chicago and Kedzie, when a gunman pulled up in a car at 7:12 p.m and opened fire. The man was shot in the left leg; the woman in the abdomen. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital, with the man in serious condition, the woman in critical.
Both shooting scenes were littered with shell casings.
At the McDonald’s parking lot, onlookers gathered just outside of the police’s caution tape, stunned at the audacity of the shooting.
“Unbelievable, they did this in front of all those cameras,” one man who asked to remain anonymous said. “These kids are getting bold.”
Jaslyn’s aunt, Tawny McMullen, said her niece was a “beautiful” and “really sweet child.”
McMullen said Jaslyn was best friends with her 8-year-old daughter.
Lawanda McMullen said her granddaughter loved to dance and make TikToks.
Jaslyn was a student at Cameron Elementary School. She was nicknamed Pinky “because she was bright” and pink was her favorite color, family members said.
Even before the Popeyes shooting, outside Stroger Hospital, family members begged for an end to violence.
“Put the guns down,” Tawny McMullen pleaded as tears streamed down her face. “Our kids want to play, my kids can’t even go out the door because of [the violence.] Please put the guns down, please. My 8-year-old baby says she don’t even want to go outside to play because she’s scared she’s going to get shot. This has gotta stop.”
Other community activists, including an emotional Andrew Holmes, also called for a ceasefire.
“You just took away somebody’s queen. You just took away a mother’s daughter. You just put hurt on the father — for what?” said Holmes, who called the shooting “senseless.”
“Every parent has taken a child to McDonald’s to get something to eat. Not to get some bullets. To the shooter, why? Why? If you had any kids, have you ever taken your kids to McDonald’s?”
Marvin Edwards, president of 100 Men Standing, a Cabrini-Green group advocating against gun violence, encouraged anyone with information relating to the shooting to come forward.
“We are sick and tired of this. It makes no damn sense,” Edwards said. “Whoever pulled this trigger on this young lady and took her life, trying to get something to eat from McDonald’s, whoever housing these individuals, turn these people in . . . We are pleading with you, do not let this go undone. Turn them in right away. This family are going through living hell right now because of the acts of some fools.”
