Dallas Police are investigating after a 6-year-old girl was shot to death on Wednesday while her mother was at a funeral home making arrangements for the funeral of her teenage son, who was shot dead last month.
Aylayna Ross was rushed to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas after the shooting, which took place at about 2:30 p.m., and was pronounced dead at 3:20 p.m., KXAS reported.
Police said the little girl was inside the home with two adults and two juveniles and, apparently, two unsecured and loaded guns that were left atop a PlayStation in a bedroom. Detectives said Thursday they were still trying to sort out what happened.
But they arrested Demariya Sowels, 19, on a tampering with evidence charge as well as unrelated warrants.
Sowels told police he brought a Glock 40 pistol and a MAC 10 submachine gun into the home and put them on top of the PlayStation. After the shooting, he said he put the MAC 10 — which was allegedly used in the shooting — and the Glock into a backpack, which he hid in the garage intending to “impair its availability as evidence in the investigation of the shooting,” police said in an affidavit.
Crime scene investigators found the guns in the backpack during a search of the home.
Sowels is being held on a $100,000 bond. The outstanding warrants charged him with evading arrest and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
A woman who said she was the little girl’s aunt told police that the child’s mother was arranging the funeral of 14-year-old Ah’bralen Rider, her son, who was found shot to death on December 29.
