Chicago shootings: Nursing assistant Kearra Thomas killed, one of this weekend's victims
CHICAGO (WLS) -- One of the 11 people shot and killed in Chicago this past weekend was 33-year-old Kearra Thomas, a certified nursing assistant, who was shot along with two other women.
"My mom, she was the light of the world," said Kamaya Thomas, her daughter.
RELATED: 4 shot, 11 fatally in Chicago weekend violence
Kamaya is a teenager who, like so many others in Chicago, has lost a loved one to gun violence.
"That was my best friend, my everything. That was my heart outside my body," she said of her mother.
On Saturday night, Kearra Thomas stopped by a vigil for an old friend who had been gunned down in Avalon Park two years ago. Before Thomas and the crowd even released balloons, a gunman walked up to the site near 81st and Woodlawn and started shooting.
"My niece called me and she said 'Auntie,'" Maria Thomas, Kearra's aunt said. "She just kept saying 'Auntie, auntie, auntie.' I said 'Kamaya why do you keep saying that? What is wrong?' She said, 'My mama just been shot!' It was like something in me just dropped."
The Thomas' are not the only family grieving. For the fourth straight weekend some of the city's streets were relentlessly violent.
"It seems like this is just a job to them, that they go out and just start shooting people, babies, they don't care anymore," Maria Thomas said. "It's just horrible out here to me."
A new memorial is at the scene Monday night. A certified home caregiver dedicated to her patients is gone. The balloons Kearra Thomas never got to release are now for her.
Like many of the weekend shootings, police said they have few leads and no one is currently in custody.
