A nine-year-old Black girl is "fighting for her life" after being shot in a road rage incident on a Houston highway earlier this month.
Ashanti Grant was watching cartoons in the back of her family's vehicle when someone in another car opened fire, striking her in the head. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Ashanti is improving, but remains in critical condition.
Houston police are reportedly ramping up the investigation to find the people responsible. So far, they have identified a suspect, a white male driver and a female passenger who are believed to have been driving a white GMC Denali pickup truck at the time of the shooting on February 8. The two apparently cut the family's car off several times on the highway before pulling behind the family's car and opening fire.
"My advice would be to turn yourself in, because we're not going to stop until we find you," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said, addressing the suspects directly, at news conference Monday (February 4).
Ashanti's parents and siblings were in the car at the time but were unhurt. Turner urged the public to assist police's investigation into the incident.
"Someone knows ... who committed this act," Turner said. "Put yourselves in the shoes of these parents." A $30,000 reward has been set aside for information in the case, Turner said.
"The people in this city, we are all praying Ashanti," he said.
Deadly road rage incidents have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, data shows. In 2020, 403 people were either severely injured or killed in road incidents.
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