3-Year-Old Boy Killed in Drive-By Shooting in Texas, Suspect Still at Large

By Bowen Xiao
November 6, 2017 Last Updated: November 6, 2017
(Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

A young boy was killed on Saturday night, Nov. 4, after being hit by gunfire in San Antonio, Texas.

San Antonio police said the family was driving down New Laredo Highway near Briggs Avenue on the South West Side when another car pulled up beside them and fired one single shot, ABC affiliate KSAT reported.

Renee Blancs, a 3-year-old boy, was shot in the head according to police. The family drove to the nearest hospital, Southwest General Hospital, where the baby was later air-lifted to University hospital. It was there where he was pronounced dead.

Max Massey, a reporter for KSAT first broke the news in a tweet.

In an update, San Antonio detectives said they are now searching for a gold or beige 4-door 2000 model Honda Civic, in connection to the murder, KSAT reported.

As of writing, police are still investigating the incident to find out who fired the shots, and what their motive was.

Renee was only three days away from celebrating his fourth birthday this coming Wednesday on Nov. 8, KSAT reported.

According to San Antonio Express-News, Renee was riding in the back seat of his families vehicle when he was shot around 11:30 p.m, on Saturday.

The single round fired from the suspect traveled through the trunk, before striking the child in the head.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 210-224-STOP (7867).

The murder of the boy came just a day before the shooting massacre at a rural Texas church on Sunday.

Suspected gunman Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people and injured another 20 when he opened fire in the white-steepled First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. The attack ranks among the five deadliest mass shootings carried out by a single gunman in U.S. history.

As he left the church, Kelley, 26 was confronted by a man identified by media as Stephen Willeford, who was armed with an assault rifle. He shot and wounded Kelley, authorities said.

As Kelley fled in a Ford Expedition, Willeford waved down a passing motorist and they chased the suspect at high speeds.

“This good Samaritan, our Texas hero, flagged down a young man from Seguin, Texas, and they jumped in their vehicle and pursued the suspect,” said Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Kelley called his father during the chase to say he had been shot and might not survive, officials said. He later crashed his vehicle, shot himself and died, they added. An autopsy will determine if he died from the self-inflicted wound or after being shot in the gunfight, officials said.

Kelley was involved in a domestic dispute with the family of Danielle Shields, a woman he married in 2014, and the situation had flared up, according to officials and official records. It was unclear if the two were still married.

“There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws,” Martin told reporters outside the church on Monday morning. “The mother-in-law attended the church … she had received threatening text messages from him.”

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt Jr. said in an interview that the family members were not in the church during Kelley’s attack.

“I heard that (the in-laws) attended church from time to time,” Tackitt said. “Not on a regular basis.”

The Texas death toll matched the fatalities at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a man shot and killed 26 children and educators after slaying his mother at their home in December 2012.

The dead ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years.

Ten of the wounded in Texas remained in critical condition on Monday morning, officials said.

Reuters contributed to this report. 

From NTD.tv