CHICAGO—When Milagros Burgos heard about the shooting death of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega on Saturday, her immediate reaction was dread.
Then came numbness.
She recalled experiencing something similar in 2014, when her own 18-year-old daughter, Alexandria Imani Burgos, was killed by a stray bullet while sitting in a kitchen waiting for her younger brother. The sensation, Burgos told The Daily Beast on Tuesday, returns every time she hears about another young person killed by gun violence that years of promises from Chicago elected officials—and a new administration in City Hall—have failed to address.
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“When you hear about these repeated crimes and it feels like nothing has been done, it puts other mothers in a numb feeling,” Burgos told The Daily Beast. “Every time this happens, it brings you back to that immediate, numb feeling.”
Burgos is just one of dozens of mothers who have had to live without one of their children due to the onslaught of gun and gang violence that has plagued the Chicago area in recent years. And her patience has long expired.
“I am angry about many things. I am angry that my daughter’s case has never been solved. I am angry at some political officials who do not advocate for gun safety legislation. I am angry that people seem to think this type of violence is normal. This isn’t normal,” Burgos said. “Just like Melissa, these are innocent lives that are at stake. And more often than not, nothing happens to solve these cases or make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The Chicago Police Department said that on Saturday afternoon, Ortega was killed by a stray bullet in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. The deadly incident has since garnered national attention—and put renewed pressure on officials in Chicago who have spent plenty of time discussing the plague of gun violence in their midst, but, activists and residents say, failed to make serious progress.
The Chicago Mayor’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. On Monday, however, Mayor Lori Lightfoot insisted in a press conference that her office was doing everything possible, and that guns and gangs were “the primary drivers” of violence in Chicago. A spokesperson for the police department directed The Daily Beast to previous comments by Superintendent David O. Brown on Ortega’s case “and overall gang violence.”
“We’ve got to make sure that we send a very clear message and strike very hard blows against every gang member in our city,” Mayor Lightfoot said. “Obviously, this little girl was not the intended target, but the fact that they are reckless and operate without any regard for the sanctity of human life, we have got to stand up and stop them and use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
In just the first three weeks of 2022 alone, according to data obtained from the Chicago Police Department, 17 children under the age of 18 have been shooting victims. In 2021, 421 children were victims of a firearm.
Ortega, a third grader at the Emiliano Zapata Academy who moved to the U.S. from Mexico just six months ago, was walking with her mother on Pulaski Road when “they heard shots and discovered the 8-year-old had been struck by gunfire,” police said in a statement.
Like Burgos’ daughter, Ortega “sustained a gunshot wound to the head,” and was transported to a local hospital. She was pronounced dead less than two hours later. On Monday, Chicago police insisted they had “very strong leads” into the “known offenders” responsible for the shooting they said was aimed at a 26-year-old who sustained gunshots to the lower back.
Alexandria Imani Burgos
Milagros BurgosSome local elected officials were themselves inclined to point the finger higher up the political food chain.
“All of Chicago is traumatized, no matter if you have experienced a loss personally, the city is feeling the pain that an 8-year-old was killed,” State Rep. La Shawn Ford told The Daily Beast. “It’s clear and it’s unfortunate that there is no real urgency to provide assistance to those who have been victims of violence in this city. What Melissa’s death and shooting show is that we are all in danger and we could all be a victim if we don’t heal this city. Sometimes I think some other politicians forget that.”
Ford aired his frustration shortly after holding a roundtable with about half a dozen family members of gun-violence victims at the Thompson Center in Chicago on Tuesday. The discussion focused on how the city could combat its gun problem—and how the lasting trauma has festered in a community begging for help.
“There is so much to be done in this city, that sometimes people simply do nothing because it’s a lot of work. It is literally grinding through it,” Angela Gregg, whose 4-year-old son was fatally shot over Labor Day weekend while he was getting a haircut, said during the roundtable.
For Elizabeth Ramirez, a co-founder of the activist group Parents for Peace and Justice, the anger stems from the fact that while she wishes to work with local elected leaders, like Lightfoot and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, they don't seem interested in collaboration. (Foxx’s office did not respond for comment.)
“We’ve tried to set up meetings, we want to work together. They just never answer us,” Ramirez told The Daily Beast.
The cold shoulder is especially painful, she noted, since she herself lost her 24-year-old son over a decade ago when a gunman opened fire during his birthday party.
According to Ramirez, the gunmen were part of a local gang who believed the party was a celebration for their rival. “My son wasn’t in a gang. He was a good kid who wanted to be a coach. But these people just shoot to shoot,” Ramirez said.
According to an internal report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, gang-fueled violence may also have been the driving force behind Ortega’s death as well. The report stated the intended target was a member of the Gangster Two-Six street gang, which has recently been locked in a deadly feud with the rival Latin Saints and the Latin Kings street gangs.
The intended target has been arrested 13 times and convicted of two felonies, according to the police report. He is currently in critical condition at Chicago’s Mount Sinai Hospital.
Graciela Garcia, a lead organizer of the Little Village Community Council and a former gang member, said that the onslaught of violence has made her fearful to show her daughter her native neighborhood.
“I have a 7-year-old daughter myself and I felt, up until recently, that it was safe for me to walk down the street with my daughter so she can enjoy the community where I come from,” she told The Daily Beast. “This has put terror for me to consider bringing her here.”
State Representative Edgar Gonzalez Jr. added that while Ortega’s death “is extremely heart-wrenching,” the chilling effect it’s had on at least one other local little girl was almost impossible to bear.
“When we were all at the vigil… the little girl began to cry, saying she was afraid to leave her house because she didn’t want to get shot. Honestly, it just makes you feel disappointed,” Gonzalez told The Daily Beast. “What does it say about the institutions that are supposed to support us when even little kids don’t feel safe? They should feel safe riding their bikes or playing tag on the streets. Instead, they want to stay inside, and I don’t blame them.”
Noting that he has spoken firsthand to several community members about what is “being done to keep their kids safe,” Gonzalez said that the conversations rarely end in a request for more police, but a demand to address “the root causes beyond advocating for and demanding effective policing.”
“I always highlight the work of community organizations, especially those with street outreach teams that intervene and deescalate potential violent incidents, and the need to keep these programs continuously up and running and well-funded,” the state representative added. “We also need to pursue and clear illegal guns off our streets. People are scared. I’m scared too. But it's my job to do something about it. This isn’t normal—we need to act now.”
To this day, Mitzie Rivera said she has yet to receive real answers for the killing of her son Enrique, calling out Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in particular.
Enrique Rivera
Mitzie RiveraFor her, the killing of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega brought up fresh frustration and pain in knowing that the system continues to fail mourning mothers.
“I am very upset with all these politicians. I think they are full of it,” she said. “I feel like they are not doing nothing for us.... They are protecting these killers, these murderers.”
Enrique was 29 and on his way to work when he was shot and killed at the intersection of Narragansett Avenue and Irving Park Road. His mother described him as a hard-working person and “a teenager who likes to party and have a good time.”
“My son always stood away from trouble,” she told The Daily Beast.
These parents are not asleep to the need for national legislative changes to rein in gun violence. But nor do they spare a local political class that has often seemed to cycle through a familiar dance of expressions of regret and police crackdowns.
For Burgos, the trauma of waiting for answers so many years later was only multiplied by the realization that gun violence in Chicago had claimed another daughter.
“Melissa was just [walking] and my daughter was just picking up her brother,” she said. “Society failed our children.”
