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Inset: Anaya Zachary (KRIV/YouTube). Background: The playground in Baytown, Tex., where Anaya Zachary was fatally shot (KHOU/YouTube).
A tragic incident occurred in Texas where a 14-year-old girl was reportedly shot by a fellow student. Police reported that the boy shot her twice in the back as she attempted to flee, and then twice more after she had fallen to the ground. This followed a verbal argument on their school bus.
“He went home, dressed in all black and wore a black mask, then returned, called out my goddaughter’s name, and shot her four times,” explained Anaya Zachary’s godmother, Sonya Stanford, to local NBC station KPRC, describing the heartbreaking event that took place on March 21 in Baytown, which lies about 25 miles east of Houston.
“She turned around to run, and he shot her twice in the back,” shared Anaya’s cousin, Janet Zachery, with ABC station KTRK. “After she fell, he shot her two more times,” Janet recounted.
The 13-year-old suspect, who has not been identified by police due to his age, allegedly got into a heated disagreement with Anaya on their school bus earlier in the day. The children attended Baytown Junior School, part of the Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District (CISD).
Stanford told local CBS outlet KHOU that the boy allegedly threatened Anaya before the shooting.
“I was told that he told Naya, ‘When I get out the bus, I’m going to kill you today,”” Stanford alleged. She said that after getting home from school that day, Anaya asked her if she could go outside to see her “little sister” and play at a playground in their apartment complex.
“She never told me about an altercation or anything,” Stanford recalled.
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Joseph Zachary, Anaya’s father, told KHOU that the details surrounding the altercation between his daughter and the shooter are not clear at the moment.
“They’re telling me it’s a school thing, I’m not sure what it is,” he said. “But I know I came here yesterday and my child was dead laying in the parking lot.”
According to a press release from the Baytown Police Department, officers were dispatched to an apartment complex in the 4600 block of Village Lane on March 21 after receiving reports of a shooting at the playground. “Upon arrival, they found a female teen near the playground with a gunshot wound,” cops said. “Officers immediately began life-saving measures until medics arrived, and she was transported to a local hospital where she was later pronounced deceased.”
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A female bystander who was at the playground with her child — and had been holding her baby at the time of the shooting — also sustained an injury from the fired rounds, according to BPD officials. “Both the female bystander and her baby were taken to the hospital for evaluation and were later cleared of any injuries,” cops said.
The teen suspect was located and taken into custody at the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center, where he was being held on a charge of murder Monday. The case remains under investigation as cops probe whether anything else may have led to the shooting.
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