Pregnant woman delivers baby after being shot at home; family thanks God
Family members of a 24-year-old pregnant Georgia woman who was shot while standing in front of a home are now thanking God after she survived along with her newborn, who was reportedly delivered at the scene on Tuesday evening.
“Everything was good,” Reginald Hampton, brother-in-law of the shooting victim, Angel Cruz, said in an interview with News12. “I just thank everybody that come through to check up on both of them, really all of them. Thank God they’re OK.”
An incident report from the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office said just before 3 p.m. they received a call about a gunshot victim in the 2500 block of Drayton Drive in Augusta.
When they arrived on the scene they were met by Cruz, a witness identified as D’angelo Wimbley, 24, along with her boyfriend Perry Williams, 28, whom police is investigating as a suspect. Officers also noticed an unloaded Black Glock 19 9mm handgun on top of the front passenger seat inside a blue Ford Explorer parked in the driveway of the residence.
Cruz told police she was in front of the home when she felt something strike her stomach. She went inside the home and noticed she was bleeding heavily from her stomach and called police.
Williams told police that he was inside his bedroom at the time of the shooting and indicated to police that “there’s a lot of drive-by shootings in the area,” according to the police report.
Police asked him if he was in possession of any firearms and he said the firearms were stored in his bedroom closet.
When they entered the home, police observed two AR-15 style firearms found in a bedroom closet, two 9mm Glock magazines on the floor of the bloody bedroom, a clear plastic bag containing marijuana and what appeared to be a large amount of blood on the bed and on the floor of the bedroom. Williams was also searched and found to be in possession of a black Glock 19 holster.
Wimbley told police he was on the phone with Williams at the time of the shooting and heard a gunshot over the phone. He said he heard Williams yelling immediately after the gunshot and quickly drove to the scene to see what happened.
Williams was turned over to criminal investigators, who charged him with reckless conduct and misdemeanor possession of marijuana while Wimbley was held on two probation violations and a state court bench warrant.
Another pregnant woman was shot dead along with her unborn child and five others in Indianapolis Sunday, the Associated Press reported. A 17-year-old boy is being held as a suspect in those killings.
Kezzie Childs, 42, Raymond Childs, 42, Elijah Childs, 18, Rita Childs, 13, and Kiara Hawkins, 19, and her unborn child were pronounced dead after being found in a home in Marion County. A sixth victim, a male juvenile, was also hospitalized with gunshot wounds after he was found on a nearby block before the other victims were discovered.
Hawkins was reportedly first taken to an area hospital, but both she and her unborn male child died despite life-saving efforts, authorities said.
“What we saw this morning was a different kind of evil,” Randal Taylor, the city’s police chief, said at a press conference. “There are no right words to say at this time. I myself am heartbroken for the lives that have been taken too soon, for the young life that’s forever been changed and for the young life that never got a chance to start, for the neighborhood left to pick up the pieces in the wake of unprecedented violence and for all of the family and friends that have been rocked by grief.”