COLUMBUS, Ohio — A 6-year-old girl is recovering at Nationwide Children’s Hospital after she was shot while in the backseat of her parent’s car near Wedgewood Village Apartments on Sunday evening, according to the Columbus Division of Police.
Authorities said the family was driving south on Wedgewood Drive when gunfire erupted around 10:30 p.m.
The young girl told her family she was bleeding so they drove her to the hospital.
Zurqa Abid said she got a call from the girl’s mother late Sunday night. She has known the family for a decade and said they are very involved with working to make a positive impact in the Wedgewood Village Apartments neighborhood.
“She was crying as she told me,” Abid said. “I started praying right away.”
Abid went to visit the girl at the hospital Monday morning. She said she was hit by two bullets, one of which is scheduled to be removed during surgery on Tuesday.
“She showed me her arm, she is pretty stable, scared but stable, but holding up. I am so proud, she is so brave and you can see coming from a stable family, stable mom, she is also a brave little girl,” Abid said. “This is one of the kids who is very bright, very nice, very good kid and she has nothing to do with anything in the neighborhood.”
Residents in the Wedgewood neighborhood are no strangers to violence. Abid believes it is a small group of people causing a lot of fear.
“They are good kids, they are soccer champions, they are advocates, they are bright kids. Their lives are in danger because there are one or two kids who have been arrested, sent back to the neighborhood and they are the ones who drive all this fear and insecurity in our neighborhood,” she said.
Abid said the young victim’s family is scared to return home.
“The mom doesn’t know what to do right now because the kids don’t want to go back. They don’t want to go back to Wedgewood but she doesn’t have any other situation settled,” she said.
Police have not identified any suspects in the shooting.