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Agence France-PresseFebruary 7, 2013 15:01
Michelle Obama to attend funeral for shot US teen
First Lady Michelle Obama will on Saturday travel to Chicago for the funeral of a 15-year-old girl who was shot dead after attending the US presidential inauguration last month.
Hadiya Pendleton -- who was remembered by relatives as a "walking angel" -- was killed after a gunman apparently mistook a group of children she was hanging out with in a park for rival gang members last month.
"The First Lady will travel to Chicago to attend the funeral service for Hadiya Pendleton. Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will also attend," a White House official told AFP.
The Chicago park where Pendleton was shot is about a mile away from President Barack Obama's South Side family home.
Pendleton was a majorette in the King College Prep school band, which brought her to Washington for Obama's inauguration on January 21.
Chicago is struggling to control an epidemic of gang violence which helped push the city's murder rate up 16 percent to 506 people in 2012. The city has already logged more than 40 murders so far this year.
The shooting came with the nation embroiled in a debate over gun violence in after the massacre of 20 young children and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school in December.
President Obama has taken a set of executive actions designed to reduce gun violence and is calling on Congress to take more sweeping measures, including curbs on high capacity magazine clips, better background checks and a renewed assault weapons ban.
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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130207/michelle-obama-attend-funeral-shot-us-teen
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