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13-Year-Old Girl Who Wrote Essay Denouncing Gun Violence is Shot Dead

Sandra Parks lamented “senseless gun violence” before her death.

A 13-year-old girl who was shot dead in Milwaukee Monday night wrote an award-winning essay denouncing gun violence before her death, USA Today reports. Sandra Parks, an eighth-grader, was killed in her bedroom at about 8 p.m. Monday when a bullet entered the home. Two men are in custody in connection to the shooting. She wrote an essay commemorating the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr when she was 11, two years before her shooting. “We are in a state of chaos,“ she wrote. “In the city in which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost every day. Little children are victims of senseless gun violence... Many people have lost faith in America and its ability to be a living example of Dr. King's dream!” Parks is reportedly the fifth Milwaukee child fatally shot inside a home in the last four years by gunfire that erupted outside.