2 Chicago girls, 11 and 12, shot in head in separate incidents
The two shootings were unrelated.
— -- Two girls, ages 11 and 12, were both shot in the head in separate, unrelated shootings that took place within an hour of each other in Chicago, police told ABC station WLS-TV.
The 11-year-old was in the rear passenger seat of a car at around 7:40 p.m. when someone fired shots, "striking her in the head," according to a bulletin published by police.
No one is in custody and the investigation is ongoing, the bulletin said.
The girl was rushed to Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition, police said.
Her grandmother identified her to WLS-TV as Takiya Holmes, and said that her condition is dire.
"They are treating her as best as they can with all kind of aggressive measures that the hospital can do for her, but it's grim and we want prayers to go up for her. We want whoever saw what happened to tell the police," Patsy Holmes told WLS.
The 12-year-old girl, Kanari Bowers, was wounded in in the West Englewood neighborhood at around 7:15 p.m., and was transported to Stroger Hospital where she is in critical condition, WLS reported.
No one is in custody for the Bowers shooting either.
Violence in Chicago has garnered national attention, following a long and violent 2016 that ended with a record number of shootings and the most homicides in two decades, police say.
There were 3,550 shooting incidents and 762 murders last year, a total that works out to an average of more than two murders and nearly 10 shootings every single day.
The trend has continued this year.
Twenty-eight people were shot in the city on the first day of January alone, according to data from the Chicago Police Department.
ABC News' Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.