Diann Aldridge (R), Nykea Aldridge’s mother, is comforted during a prayer vigil for her daughter outside Willie Mae Morris Empowerment Center on August 28, 2016 in Chicago.

Shot in the head and arm, Nykea Aldridge, a cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade, was killed when a stray bullet struck her while she was pushing her baby in a stroller Friday afternoon near an elementary school on Chicago’s south side. The 32-year-old mother of four was on her way to register her children for school. Two brothers who were on parole — one sentenced to six years in prison on a gun charge in 2013 but who served less than half his sentence — were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

The 93 homicides in August was the most the city has seen in any month since August 1996, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

Most of Chicago’s killings have been concentrated in five police districts on the city’s South and West sides, where neighborhoods struggle with gang membership, high unemployment and poverty. Police say the number of homicides is down or even in six police districts compared with last year.

In this photo, Martin Dorantes says goodbye to his nephew Rey Dorantes during his wake on January 17, 2013 in Chicago.

Fourteen-year-old Dorantes died after being shot six times while he was sitting on the front porch of his home on January 11. The city saw more than 500 homicides in 2012. 

A picture of 14-year-old Michael Orozco, taken a couple of hours before he was killed, is tucked in with religious candles at a makeshift memorial constructed on the spot where he died from a gunshot wound on April 8, 2013 in Chicago. Orozco was shot in the chest in a drive-by shooting in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood. 

On the final day of classes before summer break, students from Parkside Community Academy participate in a march against violence through the South Shore neighborhood on June 21, 2016 in Chicago.

The list of people hit by stray gunfire includes a growing number of young children. In the first six months of 2016, fifteen children younger than 10 were shot, luckily none fatally. That’s seven more than in the first half of 2015.

Chicago police and Mayor Rahm Emanuel frequently point to gang violence and the easy availability of guns as a factor in the high numbers.

Photo: Chicago Police Superintendant Garry McCarthy (R) listens as Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks during a press conference which they called to promote a plan to push for an increase in mandatory minimum sentencing for serious gun crimes in an effort to combat the city’s growing gun violence problem on February 11, 2013.

Statistics that The Associated Press requested from the Chicago Police Department show children ages 10 to 17, who make up more than 260 of the victims so far this year, are at greater risk than those younger than 10.

In this photo, people hold a candlelight vigil at Harsh Park in memory of Hadiya Pendleton on February 2, 2013 in Chicago. Pendleton, a 15-year-old high school honor student, was shot and killed while hanging out with friends on a rainy afternoon under a shelter in the park on January 29. Pendleton, a majorette with the King College Prep band, had performed in President Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities earlier in the month. She was killed about a mile from Obama’s home in the South Side. 

Andrew Holmes hands out flyers offering a $40,000 reward for the arrest of the killer of Hadiya Pendleton February 2, 2013 in Chicago. Pendleton’s death gained national attention and both President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spoke publicly about the killing and gun violence. The first lady, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago said at Pendleton’s funeral, “Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her. But I got to grow up and go to Princeton and Harvard Law School and have a career and a family.”

Micheail Ward, reportedly a member of a Gangster Disciples faction known as SUWU, was arrested 10 days after Pendleton’s death and charged. 

Many point to a loss of trust between police and the community, a long-standing problem that grew worse after Chicago police released a squad-car video in November 2015 that showed a white police officer, Jason Van Dyke, fatally shooting a black teenager 16 times. The video of Laquan McDonald’s death set off weeks of protests. Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder for the October 20, 2014 shooting.

Photo: Protester Lamon Reccord, 16, confronts police during a demonstration in response to McDonald’s death in Chicago, November 25, 2015. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed Eddie Johnson (L) the interim Chicago Police Superintendent to replace Garry McCarthy in March 2016, ignoring recommendations by Police Board. Johnson, having lived on Chicago’s South Side since he was nine-years-old, has deep roots in the community. 

McCarthy was fired following the outrage over the fatal shooting of black teenage Laquan McDonald by a white police officer when video of the shooting was released in 2015. The appointment of Johnson, a 27-year-old veteran of the department, was supported by the City Council’s Latino and black caucuses. 

He told a Crain’s Future of Chicago conference audience, “I’m an African-American police officer that grew up in Chicago and spent half of his young life in Cabrini-Green. If there’s a culture of racism in CPD, do you think I benefited from it? The answer is no.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson leads a march calling for an end to gun violence from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep High School to nearby Harsh Park February 2, 2013 in Chicago.

Miles Turner V is wheeled toward the front of the church to join his classmates following their graduation ceremony from Leo High School at St. Margaret of Scotland Church in Chicago on June 2, 2013. Turner was paralyzed in October 2012 when a gunman opened fire on him and his cousin. Turner’s cousin died in the shooting. 

Turner was not released from the hospital until May, but was able to graduate with his class with help of tutors from school. Leo High School is an all-male Catholic high school located in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside. In 2012, more than 2,500 people were shot in the city of Chicago. 

Tambrasha Hudson is comforted as she joins demonstrators protesting the shooting death of her son 16-year-old Pierre Loury near the location where he was killed on April 12, 2016 in Chicago. 

Police said Loury took off running when the vehicle he was in was pulled over by police because it matched the description of a vehicle used in an earlier drive-by shooting. The chase, according to police, ended with an “armed confrontation.”

Police investigate a shooting in which a man was wounded in the leg when someone fired at least 11 rounds at a group of people having an outdoor party in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago on June 23, 2013.

Young women watch as police prepare to remove the body of their friend after he was shot and killed on June 22, 2013 in Chicago.

Carolyn Wortham holds a portrait of her, her husband retired Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham III (L), her son Thomas (R) and daughter Sandra (rear) during a press conference where it was announced that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence had filed a lawsuit on the Wortham’s behalf against Ed’s Pawn Shop and Salvage Yard in Byhalia, Mississippi on April 24, 2013 in Chicago.

The suit claims that the Wortham’s son, Chicago Police officer and Iraq War veteran Thomas Wortham IV, was killed by a gun wrongfully sold to a straw purchaser at the pawn shop. Their son was killed outside his parents’ home on May 19, 2010 when four reported gang members tried to rob him of his motorcycle. 

Audry Miller is comforted by community activist Andrew Holmes during a memorial service and prayer vigil for her granddaughter, Shamiya Adams, on July 20, 2014 in Chicago.

Adams, 11, was killed while spending the night at a friend’s home when a stray bullet flew through an open window and an interior wall and struck her in the head on July 18th. 

Blood drops are frozen in snow on a sidewalk in the Logan Square neighborhood after 68-year-old Cayetano Sandoval was shot to death during a robbery attempt in the early-morning hours of December 12, 2013 in Chicago.

Police investigate the scene of a shooting where one man was killed and two others were wounding in a shooting on June 22, 2013 in Chicago.

Much of the increase in Chicago homicides is related to more shootings, which have been climbing since 2013 but have spiked to more than 2,953 so far in 2016, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

Marcelino Diaz holds a picture of his son Lino as he wipes away tears during a press conference he attended with other family members of murder victims on December 31, 2012 in Chicago. Lino was 23-years-old when he was shot to death on May 25, 2012. 

On the final day of classes before summer break, students from Parkside Community Academy participate in a march against violence through the South Shore neighborhood in Chicago on June 21, 2016.