5-year-old girl shot on Near West Side loved dancing and gymnastics

Reign Ware was constantly dancing across the dance floor.

Whether in the living room at home or at her aunt’s birthday party, the 5-year-old didn’t care – even birthday cake couldn’t deter the “TikTok Queen,” as her mother Raven Adams called her. Wherever she could, she fell like a gymnast. Adams had planned to enroll her daughter in a gymnastics class, but she wanted to wait until the child was “bigger” so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

Reign was scheduled to start kindergarten the next school year, a big step for the “smart” and “happy” girl who also enjoyed swimming on family trips to local pools and Wisconsin Dells.

“She was just full of life,” Adams, a Garfield Ridge resident, told the Sun-Times on Monday. “She just wanted to live, she just wanted to be a kid.”

Reign was shot around 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning in the 200 block of South Campbell Avenue while sitting in a car with her father. Her mother said the family had just left a family gathering. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Her father remained unharmed.

A 24-year-old man, unknown to the family, was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition with a gunshot wound to the left thigh.

According to a police report obtained by the Sun-Times, nearly 60 shell casings of four different calibers were found at the scene where a black Jeep Cherokee stopped and someone inside began shooting. Investigators believe others may have fired from a nearby alley.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

No arrests were made.

In the hours since the shooting, Adams said rumors have circulated about why Reign and her father stayed out so late. Reign’s 9-year-old sister, from whom Reign “learned everything,” has not been told about her death, but the family worries about what she might read or hear about the shooting.

“We’re just trying to be a little more stable than we were yesterday,” said Miss Adams, Reigns’ grandmother, who declined to give her first name for fear of retaliation from those involved in the attack. “People are so cruel these days. … We’re trying to stay calm and hug each other.”

The girl’s mother is now calling on the shooters to come forward and turn themselves in.

“I just want justice for my baby,” Adams said. “The violence just has to stop. How long is this going to go on? Until everyone is killing everyone? Just let people live.”

At least eight children have been killed in Chicago so far this year.