Mother LaPorsha Washington was hit by gunfire in her arm. Seven-year-old Jazmine was shot in the head and died at the scene.
HOUSTON — It was still dark outside when LaPorsha Washington drove her four daughters, including 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, in the family’s silver car at 6:30 a.m. Sunday to a grocery store on the eastern outskirts of Houston.
Each daughter was in her assigned seat in the family car, with Jazmine sitting behind her mother in the back seat.
Fifteen-year-old Alxis Dilbert, Washington’s oldest daughter, was sitting in the front passenger seat when she noticed a red truck pull up beside their vehicle. She described the driver as a blue-eyed white man wearing a black hoodie and looking sickly.
The family, who is black, didn’t give the truck a second thought until it changed lanes, moving around from behind to the driver’s side of Washington’s vehicle and the driver opened fired. Washington was hit by gunfire in her arm. Jazmine was shot in the head and died at the scene.
“I didn’t see anything but shattered glass and bullets coming toward my car,” Washington said.
Authorities have yet to identify or find the man who killed Jazmine, whose death her family and community activists believe could be racially motivated. They say the attack is similar to an incident in the area in 2017 in which a suspect described as white shot into a vehicle carrying at least two black people. That shooting remains unsolved.
