It had been four long hours since her 11-year-old daughter, Takiya Holmes, had been shot in the head while sitting in a car with her family on the South Side.
"I feel so helpless," Naikeeia Williams posted on her Facebook page around midnight Saturday as Takiya lay unconscious at Comer Children’s Hospital. "I can’t do anything to help my baby and this is killing me watching her lay here."
By Monday morning, Takiya’s condition had not changed and relatives were fearing the worst.
"Takiya," her mother posted around 6:25 a.m. "Mommy needs you to get up and give her 1 of those big hugs you give me and tell me its ok like u always do…. Baby i need u to be as strong as I know u can be… PLLLLLEEEEEAAAASSSSEEEEE….."
On Tuesday, Takiya died. "At 8:17 this morning Takiya passed away in her mother’s arms," a cousin, Rachel Williams, wrote.
Takiya was one of two young girls who were shot in the head in separate attacks just four miles apart on the South Side over the weekend. Kanari Gentry Bowers, 12, remained in critical condition Tuesday.
At the time, Takiya was the youngest child to die of gunfire in Chicago since 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee was lured from a park and shot in an alley near his home on the South Side in 2015. Since 2011, 92 children age 11 or younger have been shot in Chicago, according to data collected by the Tribune.
During shootings overnight in Chicago, Takiya Holmes, 11, was shot in the head by a stray bullet on the city’s South Side on Feb. 11, 2017. Kanari Gentry Bowers, 12, was hit by a stray bullet also that day in a separate South Side shooting.
Takiya never regained consciousness after she was shot in the head by a stray bullet while sitting in a parked car with her mother, aunt and younger brother in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood Saturday evening, her relatives said.
They had stopped at a cleaners in the 6500 block of South King Drive around 8 p.m. Saturday to give a ride to a friend who worked with the mother. Someone on the street opened fire and Naikeeia Williams told everyone to duck.
"Shots rang out. She (Naikeeia) told everybody to get down and once they stopped, she asked if everybody was OK," said Patsy Holmes, the girl’s grandmother. "Takiya did not respond."
The fifth grader was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital.
It is not unusual for Andrew Holmes to show up at crime scenes and offer to help the victim’s family in any way he can. Holmes, whose daughter was murdered in Indianapolis years ago, is an activist who volunteers his time to work with the families of victims of violence in Chicago.
Activist: Where is the outrage?
Community activist Andrew Holmes called upon family members to turn in individuals responsible for shooting 11- and 12-year old girls over the weekend. Both girls were shot in the head and were unintended targets, according to police. Feb. 13, 2017. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
Community activist Andrew Holmes called upon family members to turn in individuals responsible for shooting 11- and 12-year old girls over the weekend. Both girls were shot in the head and were unintended targets, according to police. Feb. 13, 2017. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
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This time was different. Takiya Holmes is his cousin.
“You know I, even after the death of my own daughter, I continued on. It hit home close again. I just can’t stop helping these families. Even though my heart was just torn and broken,” Andrew Holmes said. “It’s different in so many ways when it’s your own family. You’ve got the same pain, the same feeling as if it wasn’t your family, then there’s so much anger. You feel that anger coming up.”
He spent hours with his relatives in the hospital while Takiya was hooked up to a ventilator that kept her breathing, he said. Naikeeia Williams never left her daughter’s bedside, Holmes said. Tuesday morning doctors decided it was time to check whether she’s begin breathing.
“The doctor did a procedure to see if there was any response,” Holmes said. “The test was still negative. She wasn’t breathing on her own even when we took her off the ventilator. That’s when the decision came down.”
Friends and family were able to say their last goodbyes at Takiya’s bedside, Holmes said.
“Those that are coming in that are talking by her bedside they’re talking about the things they used to do together, telling stories,” he said. But it wasn’t as easy for him.
The family decided to donate Takiya’s organs. Around 4:30 p.m., the forms were almost filled out, Holmes said. Her kidneys were to be the first organs harvested for removal, he said.
Patsy Holmes described her only granddaughter as an "active, jovial child" with "eyes and dimples that will set your heart on fire."
She was a fifth grade student at Theophilus Schmid School, where her name was typically on the honor roll. She got upset when it wasn’t, her grandmother said.
Like any 11-year-old, her interests changed by the day. She enjoyed dancing, singing and, at one point, expressed interest in being a teacher. She also tried her luck in sports, joining a basketball team.
"She lived life and she loved it," Patsy Holmes said.
Holmes said she tried to instill homemaking skills for her only grandchild, who called her “big momma.” Every other weekend, when Takiya visited, they set out to make a different confection: cakes or pies or chocolate covered strawberries.
“Last weekend, she made brownies and they were really good,” Holmes said Sunday.
She last saw Takiya on Friday when Holmes dropped her off from school. "She said, ‘Bye, big momma, I love you.’ I told her, ‘See you Monday.’ "
But Saturday night, she got a call that the girl had been shot. Patsy Holmes said she needed to hear the news three times before it registered.
On Tuesday, after Takiya died, Patsy Holmes said the girl’s organs were being donated. "That’s the kind of person Takiya was. She would have wanted that.
"Our community has to come together to protect our children," she added. "Our children are innocent getting caught by stray bullets. The other little girl who got shot, my prayers are going out to that family."
Kanari was shot about half an hour before Takiya while playing basketball with friends at Henderson Elementary School in the West Englewood neighborhood, police said.
Kanari’s family told reporters outside Stroger Hospital that on at least three occasions, paramedics and hospital staff couldn’t detect the girl’s heartbeat. She remained on life support Tuesday and so far has not responded to her relatives, her family said.
Half an hour before Takiya’s shooting, 12-year-old Kanari Gentry Bowers was shot while playing basketball with friends at Henderson Elementary School in West Englewood, where she attended, according to police and family.
“She’s a child and she was gunned down on the streets of Chicago … over nothing at all," Kanari’s grandmother, Patricia Donald-Bowers, said Monday. “Right now she’s my priority. … All I can do is focus on her.”
At a community event Monday evening, Henderson principal Marvis Jackson-Ivy said shootings near the school are common. She said students could not leave school one day last fall to avoid walking past a crime scene. She said the school hires two officers every year so the kids can have recess outside.
“We’ve lost 50 students since September due to violence in the neighborhood,” she said. “They move to Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana—they moved out of the state.”
Police said no one was in custody in either shooting.
Police spokesman Michael Carroll said detectives were canvassing both areas for any private video and reviewing footage from city police cameras. He said the shootings were not related and the girls were both unintended targets.
“Shooters were aiming at other individuals when the girls were hit by stray rounds,” Carroll said, adding the both shootings occurred in areas with “high gang conflicts.”
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