Chicago shooting: Jaimaniamir Rivera, 7, dies after being shot on the Near West Side, on West Jackson Boulevard

CHICAGO (WLS) — A 7-year-old boy was killed in a shooting on Chicago's Near West Side Tuesday afternoon, Chicago police said.

CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling said officers responded to a call about shots fired at the Oakley Square Apartments, a gated complex, in the 2300 block of West Jackson Boulevard around 3 p.m. When they arrived, they found the boy with a gunshot wound to his chest.

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The boy was leaving their residence to visit a neighbor when shots were fired from a distance and an apparent stray bullet struck him, Snelling said.

Snelling said officers immediately applied pressure to the wound to try to slow the bleeding and rushed him to Stroger Hospital in the back of their squad car. Despite life-saving measures, the boy died in hospital.

He was identified by the Cook County medical examiner as Jaimaniamir Rivera.

WATCH: Update from CPD Superintendent. Larry Snelling, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson

“This is unbearable and unacceptable to everyone in our city,” Snelling said.

Family members, overcome with grief and anguish, gathered outside the hospital, joined by more and more loved ones by the minute.

Snelling said it appears the shooting was random and he does not believe Rivera was the intended target. He said detectives were canvassing the neighborhood looking for evidence or any video that may have captured the shooting.

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Rivera's age was initially listed as 4, but Snelling clarified that he was 7.

Neighbors at the scene said he was playing outside at the time of the shooting and expressed outrage.

“It's crazy. I mean whoever did the shooting, you know y'all just took someone's 7 year old child, it doesn't even have anything to do with what's happening here,” said his neighbor, Ethiopia Jackson.

More than 70 people were shot, nine of them fatally, between Friday and Monday in Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson addressed the violence for the first time Tuesday.

“The grief in this city has become more and more unbearable. The ungodly behavior and acts of violence that have ravaged our city for so long have reached a breaking point in this city,” he said.

Snelling denounced the violence in Chicago last weekend and overall, saying that while the overall numbers are down, any person shot is unacceptable.

“We really need to think about who we are as a society when our kids are getting shot in the street,” Snelling said. “We will not rest until we bring justice to this case. And it's not just this case. We see this happen to our children too often. Even though the numbers are down from to last year, any person shot is unacceptable Even if it's one, it's too many. We really need to think about what we're doing.

Snelling said that so far in 2024, 127 minors have been victims of gun violence and 17 have been killed.

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