At 2:45 pm on Saturday, January 22, 2022 and 8 year old girl, Melissa Ortega, was killed while walking with her mother. She was an accidental victim of gunfire exchange on a street in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. Another child was nearly killed by a second stray bullet that destroyed the back window of the car where she was sitting. 

As of January 24, 2022 34 people have been killed by homicides in Chicago, 30 of which involved gunfire. The homicide victims were disproportionately Hispanic or Black.  National trends are similar to trends in Chicago’s data:  75% of all homicides involved guns and the majority of victims of gun violence are Hispanic and Black.   According to data compiled by The Brady Plan, every year nearly 8,000 children in America are victims of gun violence. Thirty-six percent of those victims were shot unintentionally. 

The response of the Little Village community to the tragic event was rapid, strong, and positive.  Local businesses provided meals to the grieving family. The Teachers’ Union issued a press release expressing solidarity with the family and mourning “the loss of another student from one of our school communities”. The Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, encouraged anyone with information to contact authorities so the perpetrators could be held accountable.  Police officers knocked on doors and worked with community leaders. This collaboration resulted in the arrest of two suspects five days after the murder. One of the suspects is 16 years old.

The negative effects of the recent Saturday afternoon shooting in Chicago extend far beyond friends and family of the Ortega family. The effects will ripple through the community, affecting the lives of thousands of innocent families and children.  Beyond mourning the loss of one of its youngest members, community members are now at heightened risk for emotional and psychological conditions.  Research shows that gun violence affects the entire community, often leading to  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)– a multifaceted condition that disrupts functioning and interferes with normal human development. 

The onset of PTSD is unpredictable; timing and severity vary by individual and some may require lifetime treatment.  Experiencing gun violence is also associated with higher risk for substance abuse, depression, and aggressive behavior. Could it be that the suspect himself was a victim of gun violence and his decision-making on that fateful January afternoon evidences the effects of undiagnosed PTSD?

Treatments for PTSD include individual therapy and community based interventions. Community-based programs that nurture reliance and support healing have show positive effects. School-based interventions such as training programs for educators are also promising.  Evidence based trauma interventions in classrooms include providing consistency and structure and supporting social-emotional learning.

Melissa Ortega’s death has implications beyond the Little Village community. It is yet another example of the consequences of America’s inability to address widespread gun violence that continues to plague poor minority communities.  Suggestions for fixing the problem abound. Some recommend stopping the flow of illegal guns into impacted communities. Others argue for creating a culture of gun safety.  There are also strong advocates for using health methods to reduce community violence or multi-faceted solutions informed by psychology. 

Gun violence in America is an intractable problem. As such, it’s unlikely that there is one pathway to its reduction.  Rather, effectively reducing gun violence is likely require an approach that integrates multiple interventions and can be customized to meet the unique needs of the communities in which it is implemented. These approaches must respond to the unique environmental characteristics and individual and group risk factors in each community.  They must also include preventative and remedial interventions.  The more data collection and program evaluation that accompany these efforts, the better positioned we will be to get better perspective on this important social problem. 

Clearly, America would be well served by adopting a new approach to addressing gun violence. Data from the last fifty years indicate that the problem has not only persisted but gotten worse.   Countless interventions have been funded and numerous studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between poverty, exposure to violence in childhood, and mental illness and involvement in lethal crimes. It’s likely that these three predictive variables could have helped identify the teenager responsible for shooting Melissa Ortega.

The conditions that perpetuate gun violence have been clearly defined and widely publicized. Yet, nothing has improved? Why?

One possible explanation is that many Americans prefer to focus on what’s happening in their own backyards. In doing so, they can ignore the violence that happens in someone else’s community.  No one owns the problem. 

Who bears responsibility for addressing gun violence in America’s communities?

If you are a person who embraces the moral imperative that all children deserve to be safe in their homes and communities, then you bear some responsibility. 

The problem of gun violence does not belong to Little Village. It belongs to those of us who understand that we must speak up for children who live in dangerous communities and advocate on their behalf.