DALLAS — A child was hit by gunfire after someone shot into an apartment in South Dallas late Monday, police said.
The shooting happened around 11:20 p.m. in the 2400 block of Foreman Street, just east of Fair Park.
The suspect left the area after the shooting, and no arrests have been made.
The shooting happened just blocks from two other deadly shootings Sunday and Monday.
Mere hours after being discharged from the hospital, D’yonna Otey told WFAA she's just ready to go back to school.
“One of [the doctors] said I'll be able to like recover like a week and I'll be able to go back,” the fifth-grader said.
She’s your typical 11-year-old. She likes science and hanging out with her friends.
“I do steps and I'm in like this history group,” she said.
But Monday night she was put into an unimaginable situation.
“I was just sleep until I heard some gunshots and I just felt stinging,” she said.
That stinging from bullet fragments that pierced through the fifth-grader's bedroom window, doctors say it narrowly missed her spine. According to Dallas police, the gunfire came from a shootout between her family’s next door neighbor and someone outside.
It’s something the 11-year-old hardly knows how to process..
The violence that night is a part of a string of crime at the Sun Palace Apartments in Dallas in the past few days.
Sunday night, her downstairs neighbor was gunned down.
“I was just in the House and I heard gunshots and when everybody came outside and there was just the boy dead in the breeze away,” said D’Yonna’s mom, Diamond.
She just wants the violence put to rest.
“They need to stop with all this shooting and stuff just since senseless. Just trying to shoot everything, everybody and stuff,” D’Yonna’s mom said. “Like it's just unfair cause of my baby would have got killed last night. I would have went to jail and hell.”
Tuesday afternoon, Dallas police’s gang unit was at the complex talking to neighbors. Diamond Otey says she just wants them to find whoever did this.
“We don't know nobody over here. We going to bother nobody or whatever. And I'm just like, I'm really hurt and mad that that happened to my baby,” she said.
The suspect left the area after the shooting, and no arrests have been made. The shooting happened just blocks from two other deadly shootings Sunday and Monday.
On Sunday night, a 2-year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday night. Zyah Lacy was killed when someone started shooting at a gathering of people in the 4700 block of Hay Street. A woman was also critically injured in that shooting.
On Monday afternoon, four people were shot in the 4800 block of Elsie Faye Heggins Street, and one of the victims died. She has since been identified as 19-year-old Savannah Rodriguez.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said despite the recent string of tragic shootings, the Southeast area’s violent crime rate is down 4% this year.
“We’re gonna continue to look at our areas of concern,” Garcia said during a press conference Tuesday.
Tuesday, Garcia said police have not found a connection between the shootings that occurred between Sunday and Monday, but the investigation is ongoing.
“It was a challenging weekend, no question about it,” Garcia said. “We need to make sure we recognize and understand where we are as a city.”
Community leaders are doubling down on their efforts to transform the South Dallas area.
Candace Fleming, the COO of Urban Specialists described the recent shootings as senseless.
Urban Specialists has brought South Dallas and other areas support through various resources over the last two decades.
“We always respond with hope,” Fleming said. “Today we see a lot more neighborhood, clique, zone violence.”
The shooting death of two-year-old Zyah was especially difficult to process, Fleming said. Leaders of the organization knew some of her family members personally.
“We feel the weight of this,” Fleming said. “It’s hitting close to home.”
Urban Specialists provides mentorship to those who are prone to violence and at-risk behaviors. Fleming said their work to disrupt poverty is pivotal, along with connecting struggling individuals with the resources they need. The organization’s prevention efforts include partnering with Dallas PD and placing advocates in each community.
“This is hard work,” Fleming said. “Sometimes you have these moments that remind us of what is yet to be done, but we just hold fast to the fact that there’s been progress.”