A 13-year-old girl who wrote an essay on gun violence has been killed in her own home by a stray bullet.
"She took it like a soldier," her sister, Tatiana Ingram, told WISN. "She just walked in the room and said, 'Mama, I'm shot' ... The bullet wasn't even for her."
Sandra Parks, a student at Keefes Avenue School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was in her bedroom when somebody opened fire on the building.
"Tragically, her death was caused by someone who just decided they were going to shoot bullets into her house and she's dead," Milwaukee mayor Tom Barratt told reporters.
It is not clear why the house was shot at, however two men have been charged in connection with the teenager's death.
In 2016, Ms Parks came third in an essay competition with an essay called Our Truth about gun violence.
In it, she wrote that "little children are victims of senseless gun violence" and there is "too much black on black crime".
“Sometimes, I sit back and I have to escape from what I see and hear every day,” she said. “When I do; I come to the same conclusion … we are in a state of chaos.”
She appealed to people to care more about each other, concluding: "We must not allow the lies of racism, violence and prejudice be our truths."
According to the New York Times, Ms Parks was the seventh child from a government-run school to die by homicide since January.
The girl's mother Bernice Parks has created a GoFundMe page to raise money for her daughter's memorial.
She said the teenager had hoped one day to go to university and become a writer.
