An innocent mistake has caused two teenagers on a competitive cheerleading team to be reportedly shot by a stranger in Oak Ridge, Texas, after one of the teenagers mistakenly attempted to get in the wrong car.
According to ABC13 News, Heather Roth and her three teammates from the Round Rock area were members of the Woodlands Elite Cheer Company in Oak Ridge.
The teens drove to practice three times a week and parked in the same lot. They reportedly used the Elgin H-E-B lot as a central meetup spot to carpool the 360-mile round trip. It was reported that just after midnight on Tuesday morning, Roth was dropped off at a car by her friend that she thought was her vehicle. She opened the door and noticed a man sitting in the passenger seat.
Roth was frightened and quickly got back in the car with her friend because she thought a stranger was in her vehicle. The strange man got out of the car he was sitting in and approached Roth’s friend’s vehicle.
Roth noticed the man approaching the vehicle and she rolled down her window to apologize.
“He raised his hands and then brandished his weapon and then just started shooting at the girls,” Payton’s father Kelan Washington told NBC News.
Police officers stated that Roth suffered a graze wound. She was treated on the scene and then released. Her teammate, Payton Washington, was reportedly shot in the leg and back.
“Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood,” Roth said.
Washington was flown to a nearby hospital in critical condition. The high-school senior suffered damage to multiple organs and had to have her spleen removed. Elite Cheer Company co-owner Lynne Shearer said that she already was competing with one lung.
“She’s a fighter. She’s very strong,” Shearer told ABC13 News.
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