Chicago dad, baby are shot as he changes her diaper

A Chicago man and his baby daughter were shot while he changed her diaper in a van on the street, police said Monday.

Jonathan Watkins, 29, was shot in the left side, cheek and right buttock, police said. His daughter, identified by family members as Jonylah Watkins, was wounded by a bullet that passed through her right shoulder and landed in her thigh, police said.

The baby was in critical condition after surgery at Comer Children’s Hospital, the Chicago Tribune reported. Jonathan Watkins went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in serious to critical condition, the Tribune said.

“She isn’t nothing but 6 months old,” the girl’s grandmother, Maryann Young, told NBC Chicago. “How could anybody -- what kind of heart?”

Officials said Watkins was standing outside his van with the door open to change his daughter’s diaper when a man appeared and opened fire. The gunman ran through an empty lot before speeding off in a van, the Tribune reported.

“They were big gunshots ... 10 shots ... very close,” Dominique Young, the baby’s aunt, told FOX 32. Young said she was walking her son to school when the shooting happened nearby.

The family has experienced gun violence before, family members told the Tribune. The baby’s mother, 20, was shot in the leg while eight months pregnant. She was at work when the latest attack happened.

“It’s too much shooting over there,” Maryann Young told the Tribune. “I’m trying to get my kids out of there.”

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matt.pearce@latimes.com