Two gunmen were being sought in a shooting in Texas that killed a 4-year-old girl and wounded her parents and two brothers. (Victim’s photo from family and bullet-riddled door from KSAT/YouTube; surveillance photo from Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
Two gunmen were being sought for spraying a townhome in Texas with bullets, killing a 4-year-old girl and wounding her parents and two brothers, ages 7 and 8, in a targeted attack caught on a neighbor’s surveillance video.
The Wednesday evening shooting near San Antonio tore a family apart and shocked a community.
“I just don’t understand. Like, who does that?” April Luna told local ABC affiliate KSAT. “I just want my granddaughter. I want her back.”
Luna, who was in the townhome when gunfire erupted, told the news station a 3-year-old was also home then but wasn’t physically hurt.
“It was just so loud, and it just didn’t stop,” Luna told the outlet. “I walked downstairs, and all I saw was my granddaughter. They shot her in the face.”
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference this week he had much of his department hunting down the killers.
“They were there to inflict maximum damage,” he said. “Is it going to give me great pleasure to charge both of these two guys with capital murder when the time comes? Absolutely, it’s going to. I can promise you that.”
Deputies received a call just before 8 p.m. of a shooting in the 6700 block of Windsor Hollow Drive.
Once there, deputies found a chaotic scene — a nursing assistant neighbor trying frantically to revive a little girl. The first deputy to arrive, a trained and licensed paramedic, helped administer lifesaving measures before emergency medical services arrived. But despite their efforts, the girl died.
At the news conference, Salazar released surveillance video showing a car — described as a gray Infiniti Q50 — arriving and two masked shooters from different angles running up and “laying down some gunfire” at the home from outside using short-barreled rifles called Dracos. Salazar described them as small AK-47-type weapons that fire “devastating rounds.”
One of the shooters is described as a white or Hispanic male wearing a gray hoodie, black pants, and red shoes. The second shooter wore black athletic clothes and possibly white or gray shoes.
Some 30 rounds littered the scene, Salazar said. The front of the townhome was pierced with bullet holes.
“For lack of a better word, they Swiss-cheesed the front of that house,” Salazar said, the San Antonio Express-News reported. “It’s a miracle we’re not dealing with five dead bodies right now.”
Salazar said the holes were not round and appeared longer and more slender than regular bullet holes. Since the weapon has such a short barrel, the bullets tumble when fired, he said.
“The rounds, almost as soon as they come out of that gun, are tumbling, and so when they hit, they hit flat,” Salazar explained. “That’s a devastating wound … so you can imagine that coming into contact with a little girl, 4 years old.”
Salazar added that the shooters intended to take lives.
“This was not a drive-by shooting where they shot from the street. They wanted to get out and get up close and personal, and they wanted to empty enough lead into that home to make sure that they inflicted maximum damage to make sure that they killed somebody.”
The family’s aunt set up a GoFundMe.
“This is my 4-year-old niece she gained her wings and went to heaven,” she wrote. “Her life was taken so senselessly. Some cowards decided to shoot up their home killed her and her two brothers are fighting for their lives in the hospital. Her mother was shot as well and may not be able to walk again. Please help. RIP my baby girl you will be truly missed.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
