Two Texas cheerleaders were shot after one of them mistakenly got into the wrong vehicle in a parking lot after practice, officials said.
Elgin Police said officers responded to reports of a shooting outside an H-E-B supermarket early Tuesday. Officers found two victims with gunshot wounds. One of the victims was treated and released at the scene, the other was taken by helicopter to a hospital in critical condition, according to Elgin police.
A suspect identified as Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was arrested and charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.
Lynne Shearer, the owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer, told NBC affiliate KXAN, that four cheerleaders from her gym typically carpooled from Austin to their location for practice. The teens stopped at the H-E-B in Elgin, about 25 miles northeast of Austin, where some of the members had parked their cars.
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One of the teens accidentally tried to get into the wrong car, but when she tried to apologize, the man pulled a gun and she backed into her friend's vehicle, Shearer said.
"And so they tried to speed off and he shot his gun, like five times or so into the car,” Shearer said.
KXAN, citing criminal complaint documents, reported that surveillance video from the shooting scene led police to the suspect.
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Shearer identified the critically injured cheerleader as Round Rock Independent School District student Payton Washington.
“She’s won every title there is to win in all-star cheerleading. She’s literally a role model for the kids in this industry throughout the country,” Shearer said. “Everybody knows her. She’s literally one of the very best that’s ever done this sport.”
Washington's father, Kelan Washington, told NBC News that his daughter was shot in the leg and back. He said doctors removed her spleen and she’s now stable in the ICU at Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas in Austin.
Kelan Washington described the star athlete, born with just one lung, as "tough as they come."
He said he was baffled by the shooter's response, telling NBC News, "You watched her walk up to your door on accident — it's a girl in a cheer outfit."
It marks at least the third incident in a week in which young people who’d made an apparent mistake were met with gunfire. Last Thursday, a Black teenager in Kansas City, Missouri, was shot by a homeowner after he mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his younger twin brothers from a family friend's home. On Monday, a 20-year-old woman was shot to death by a homeowner in upstate New York after pulling into the wrong driveway.
