Nykea Aldridge: Cousin of Dwyane Wade, killed pushing baby stroller
Thirty-two-year-old Nykea Aldridge was doing what mothers do: Minding her business Friday afternoon outside the Parkway Gardens neighborhood in Chicago. She had just left the Dulles School for Excellence around 3:30 p.m.. She was pushing her baby in a stroller. She was accompanied by a man, whom she was chatting with.
Two men, known to area police as gang members, came up to them. Then gunfire erupted. Aldridge was struck by bullets in her arm and head, according to WLS-TV. Aldridge was declared dead at the hospital.
Police charged the two men, Derren Sorrells, 22, and his brother Darwin Sorrells, 26, with first-degree murder in the slaying of Aldridge. Police say Derren pulled the trigger.
"When he comes out to his vehicle now there are two offenders armed with handguns who began chasing him down and attempting to kill him and they miss and kill the female," Brendan Deenihan, commander of Chicago police detectives in the area, told CNN Sunday.
Police say Derren was actually wearing an electronic ankle monitor for an unrelated and crime and was out of jail just two weeks earlier.
"Obviously, this individual used his time to kill someone,” Chicago police Cmdr. Brendan Deenihan told reporters at a news conference Sunday, according to the Daily Beast.
"These two offenders are the prime examples of the challenge we face here in Chicago," police superintendent Eddie Johnson said, the Daily Beast reports.
Outside the hospital Friday night, the Rev. Jolinda Wade, Dwyane Wade's mother, told reporters, “We are now in a very, very sensitive grieving place." She called the shooting "senseless" as she held her sister Diana, who was silently crying.
While police say Aldridge was not the intended target but was hit in the "crossfire," two men are being held by police in connection with the slaying, police told WLS.
Wade tweeted Friday that it was indeed his cousin who was shot and killed in the broad daylight shooting.
The shooting has shaken Wade, who agreed to come back to his hometown of Chicago this past summer after more than a decade in Miami.
"The entire Chicago Bulls organization is deeply saddened by the news of Dwyane Wade’s cousin, Nykea Aldridge. We send our deepest condolences to the entire Wade family during this difficult time," the team said in a statement released Friday.
Despite her sadness, the Rev. Wade spoke of reconciliation and forgiveness for those who commit violence.
"We're still going to try and help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction, so this thing won't keep happening," she said, according to ABC News. "We're still going to help empower people like the one who senselessly shot my niece in the head."
