CHICAGO – A woman has been sentenced to nine years in prison for deliberately shooting a 12-year-old girl who got into an argument with her niece.
Telisa Pratt, 30, received the sentence from Judge Carole Howard after pleading guilty to aggravated battery by discharging a firearm. She will be eligible for release in July 2030 after serving 85% of her time.
“You, as an adult, pulled out a gun and fired it at a 12-year-old,” Judge Charles Beach noted when he heard the charges during an initial court hearing two years ago.
The shooting, which was captured by several surveillance cameras outside a gas station in the 8900 block of S. South Chicago Avenue, left the girl in critical condition with a gunshot wound to her neck, prosecutors said.
According to the charges, the victim and Pratt’s niece were classmates who had been involved in an argument. On November 13, 2022, the victim was walking into the gas station with her sister’s boyfriend around 9:30 a.m. when Pratt pulled into the parking lot with her niece in the front passenger seat.
Pratt and her niece shouted the victim’s name, and the girl approached the passenger side of Pratt’s car with her sister’s boyfriend.
“I bet you don’t want to wave,” Pratt allegedly challenged the girl, before hitting Pratt’s niece with her hand.
Pratt then pulled a gun from between the seats, shot the girl in the neck and drove away, prosecutors alleged. The gas station’s cameras allegedly captured the incident from several angles, including one that clearly showed Pratt pointing and firing the gun.
Chicago police served a search warrant on Pratt’s car and reportedly found a shell casing under the driver’s seat.
Pratt was pregnant with her fourth child at the time of her arrest. Due to her pregnancy, she was placed under electronic monitoring pending trial. She earned more than 600 days of credit toward her prison sentence by wearing the ankle monitor.
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