6-year-old Chicago girl shot in the head doing well after surgery

FOX 32 NEWS - One day after she suffered a gunshot wound to the head, 6-year-old Zariah Muhammed successfully underwent surgery to remove the bullet. Her head is wrapped in a big white bandage, but her smile still beams enough to light up her hospital room.

“She's actually great, she's running, she's on the iPad right now like she normally do, she can't stay out the cartoons, she's got all type of toys, and balloons, and so she's at her best,” said Gloria Strong Muhammed, Zariah’s mother.

It was a chaotic afternoon Thursday in the 6800 block of South Calumet when gunfire shattered the fun of a neighborhood water balloon fight. Twenty-two-year-old David McCray was shot multiple times and killed, and a stray bullet became lodged in Zaria's skull. The senselessness of the shooting left her mother angry at the gunman.

“Why do you want to harm anyone, shooting anyone, especially in front of their friends and their family and their loved one and their children? Now my daughter’s got a live with the fact that they just watched their uncle die right in front of their face,” said Strong Muhammed.

On Friday afternoon, Mayor Rahm Emanuel stopped by the hospital to check on the girl and her family. He expressed his frustration at the shooters reeking havoc on too many families.

“I have been at plenty of bedsides in hospitals, plenty of living rooms or front rooms and apartments. I have never heard once of a gangbanger calling and saying I am sorry,” said Mayor Emanuel

Zariah's mother is doing her best to help her daughter cope with the physical and emotional trauma

“She done never been through this, she's six years old, you know what I'm saying? She has an older sister that don't understand neither. I don't even understand, you know what I'm saying, so it's hard for me to get through this, but I have to stay strong for all them, and she kept me strong, actually,” said Strong Muhammed.