The search is on for a gunman accused of shooting into a fleeing car, injuring a child inside.
According to Dallas police (DPD), the violent scene happened during a baby shower that stretched into 5 a.m. Sunday.
Neighbors in the southeast Dallas Urbandale neighborhood say the sound of gunfire is not uncommon.
Few could fathom the events that transpired June 26 along the 6800 block of Kennisson Drive.
“It’s terrible,” said one lifelong resident who wanted to be identified as Juan H.
According to DPD, the preliminary investigation determined that a female and a juvenile were shot by an unknown suspect.
Charging documents make no mention of an injured woman.
The morning of the shooting, officers in the Southeast Patrol Division responded to Dallas Regional Hospital in Mesquite, where the injured girl’s mother drove her.
During subsequent police interviews with witnesses, detectives learned family members gathered at the house for a baby shower when a fight broke out.
Two vehicles, a blue Chevy Camaro and a silver Chrysler 300, with several people inside, pulled up and confronted the girl’s mother as she was leaving, according to the affidavit.
“‘From Surveillance videos, individuals from the Chrysler 300 started chasing [the woman’s car] as she drove over the sidewalk to get away from them…[The Child’s mother] said one of the males [got out of the Chrysler] caught up to [her car] and fired a total of four shots into the back…” One of the bullets hit her 7-year-old, according to the affidavit.
As police began investigating the shooting, DPD says its real-time fusion center, which uses technology and law enforcement partnerships to track criminal activity within DPD’s service area, helped detectives track down the owner of a Chrysler 300 “reportedly in the area right after the shooting.”
That person, police say, is Jose Fernando Baca Hernandez.
Police say they arrested Hernandez at his home and he willingly admitted to detectives that he knew his friend fired shots at the fleeing vehicle, and he was scared to report the offense to the police.
Hernandez, 20, opted to drop off his friends and went home, according to the documents.
He now faces a misdemeanor ‘failure to report a felony’ charge.
DPD can only say the suspected shooter is still on the loose.
On Wednesday morning, NBC 5 spoke with a young man gathering folding chairs at the house where the shooting happened. He declined to speak on camera but said the little girl is okay and is in stable condition at the hospital.
Their neighbor says this is another unfortunate case where conflict resolution and cooler heads should have prevailed.
“This unfortunately is one of those situations where things get out of control, emotions are running high, no one is there to really mediate, no one knows how to de-escalate a situation, so things like that happen,” said Juan H.
DPD says the investigation is ongoing.
