The Latest: Bullet that hit girl was 1 of more than 40 fired

CHICAGO – The Latest on shootings of children in Chicago this summer (all times local):

11 a.m.

Chicago police say the bullet that struck a 6-year-old girl while she sat on a porch with her grandmother and mother was one of more than 40 fired in what may have been a gang-related gunbattle a block away.

Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EHL'-mee) says detectives are trying to determine if the gunfire Tuesday in the West Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side was an exchange between people inside vehicles and young men on the street. He says another possibility is that one person in one of the vehicles sprayed the area with a high-capacity weapon. No arrests have been made.

Tacarra Morgan was struck in the stomach and rushed to Comer Children's Hospital for surgery. On Wednesday, a hospital official said her condition was upgraded from critical to serious.

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1:20 a.m.

With a spike in killings and shootings this year in Chicago, statistics show more bullets are hitting children as they do normal kid things like play with sparklers, draw on the sidewalk or hold a mother's hand.

Police records through June showed 15 children younger than 10 had been shot, which is seven more young shooting victims than the same span last year.

Four more young children have been shot since the start of July, including a 6-year-old girl who was sitting on a porch when a bullet fired a block away struck her in the torso Tuesday.

No child has died from the gunfire often connected to gangs.

Among the wounded is 4-year-old Kavan Collins. A bullet struck him in the cheek last month as he held his mother's hand.