A man in Texas shot and wounded two cheerleaders when one almost got into his car by mistake, according to officials and local media reports.
The shootings of Payton Washington and her Woodlands Elite Cheer Company teammate Heather Roth came three days after 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot dead in New York when the car she was riding in pulled into the driveway of a wrong address. Two days before that, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot and injured in Kansas City, Missouri, by a man whose doorbell he rang after going to the wrong address to pick up siblings.
The three cases have cast a worldwide spotlight on US gun culture.
In Texas, Roth, Washington and two teammates reportedly drove three times each week from Round Rock near Austin to Oak Ridge North, outside Houston, to practice with the Woodlands Elite team. The round-trip is about 360 miles: the girls used the parking lot of a grocery store in Elgin, near Round Rock, as a carpool meeting point.
After midnight on Tuesday, Roth got out of a friend’s car and opened the door to a vehicle that resembled one she had left parked there, Houston TV station KTRK reported. Roth said she was alarmed to find a man in the passenger seat, so she went back to her friend’s car.
The man came up to them. Roth rolled the window down to apologize and explain her mistake. The man pulled a gun and fired into the car, striking both girls, Roth told KRTK. Roth had a graze wound that was treated on scene. Washington was shot in the back and a leg.
“Payton opens the door and she starts throwing up blood,” Roth told KTRK.
First responders flew Washington to hospital. Her spleen was removed and she is scheduled for more surgeries to repair damage to multiple organs, a coach said on Instagram late on Tuesday.
In a statement, Elgin police said they identified the shooter as Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. The 25-year-old was charged with deadly conduct, a felony which can carry up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000.
Woodlands Elite requested prayers for Roth, Washington and two teammates who were also shot at. The school also set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover Washington’s medical expenses, noting that she “will have a long road to recovery”. The campaign had raised more than $66,000 by Wednesday.
Before her shooting, Washington found success in competitive cheerleading despite having only one lung, the Woodlands Elite principal, Lynne Shearer, told KTRK, adding that it showed how “she’s a fighter – she’s very strong”.
Washington was due to participate in the Cheerleading Worlds event in Florida this weekend, which Shearer said was “the only title” Washington had not won at her current level. She has signed to join the acrobatic and tumbling team at Baylor University. Its coach, Felecia Mulkey, visited her in the hospital on Tuesday.
“I have no doubt she’s going to get through this,” Mulkey told KTRK. “She’s an amazing athlete but a better human.”
Like Tello, the suspects in the shootings of Gillis and Yarl were arrested. In Yarl’s shooting, Andrew Lester, 84, faces a charge of assault in the first degree, the Missouri’s term for attempted murder. Authorities say the shooting appears to have had “a racial component”. Lester is white. Yarl is Black.
In the shooting of Gillis, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan faces a second-degree murder charge. By Wednesday there was no indication race played a factor in the shootings of Gillis, Roth or Washington.