HOUSTON — Surrounded by her family and friends from a hospital bed at Ben Taub hospital, mother LaPorsha Washington is begging for the public's help.
Washington was shot in her left shoulder Sunday morning, as she worked to drive her four daughters out of danger. Her daughter, 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, was shot and killed. The shooter is still on the loose.
"Any information, anything," said 30-year-old Washington. "I mean, if it’s one letter off the license plate, if it’s something that’s hanging from his mirror, any little detail that you can give investigators about this truck, about this man."
Washington had this message for her child's killer: "You caused harm. You hurt. You took. You don’t deserve to be out there to take another life."
Washington says she and her daughters, who range in age from 6 years old to 15 years old, left their home in east Harris County around 6:30 a.m. Sunday. She says they were headed to a Joe V's grocery store along the Beltway.
Washington says they were listening to music, excited to buy coffee for her 87-year-old uncle.
She had just driven through the intersection of Wallisville Road and the Sam Houston Tollway and past a Walmart when the red, four-door pickup drove up beside them.
Investigators with the Harris County Sheriff's Office say the driver fired several shots.
Jazmine, Washington says, was slumped over in the backseat moments after the drive-by shooting.
"I replayed this moment, in my head over a million times. Did I see?" questioned Washington. "Did I cut this man off? Did I make a wrong turn in front of him? Did I stop him from getting out of the Walmart, from whatever he was doing, did I do anything wrong to cause this man to fire shots in my car? And I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t make a wrong turn. I didn’t get over in his lane. I didn’t do none of that. He fired off at us for no reason. None."
Washington's 6-year old daughter was cut by shattered glass.
Investigators are asking that anyone who lives or works near the scene of the shooting check their security camera video for a red four-door truck. Deputies don't know in what direction the truck fled after the shooting. The entrance of a neighborhood is located just beyond where the shots were fired.
Barnes was a second-grade student at Monahan Elementary in the Sheldon Independent School District. The campus is asking parents of Barnes' classmates to break the news of her death now, so students are surprised by the additional counselors at the campus when classes resume on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019.
"And it’s going to be difficult," said J.R. Webster, Executive Director of Student Services with Sheldon I.S.D. "There’s going to be different conversations taking place this week and then when students return and they see their classmates, there’s going to be new conversations."
The family has set up a gofundme.com account to help pay for funeral and hospital expenses.