Developing story: 16 Year old girl robbed and shot walking home from work in Houston

[TexasJohnBoy]

People can suck pretty bad. Glad she's alive.

[TangoX-ray]

I'm thankful she survived. Here is the full article: http://abc13.com/news/teen-shot-during- ... l/1355758/

[Lynyrd]

This story just makes me angry. The lesson I see here is don't EVER walk to an ATM. I wouldn't ever use an ATM at night either. Thieves are opportunists, and ATM's make for opportunities.

That being said, I can't imagine the feeling from that father getting the call that his 16 year old daughter had just been shot. Lord help me if that happened to me.

[C-dub]

Maybe someone besides the police will find him first and bring what's left of him to the police.

[vjallen75]

This story just makes me angry. The lesson I see here is don't EVER walk to an ATM. I wouldn't ever use an ATM at night either. Thieves are opportunists, and ATM's make for opportunities.

That being said, I can't imagine the feeling from that father getting the call that his 16 year old daughter had just been shot. Lord help me if that happened to me.

Totally agree! Makes me mad that they didn't stop at robbing her but shot her as well. Could have possibly killed her . I hope they catch these scumbags and let them rot in prison.

[dlh]

Hillary and Michelle believe those thugs are just "bored youth.".....Go figure.

[TexasJohnBoy]

"Justice Involved Individual"

[ghostrider]

that's really low.

hopefully, the criminal's next victim will be an unoccupied, fumigated house.

http://www.texaschlforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=84364

[Skiprr]

This incident happened in Copperfield, in an area not far from one I frequent, the Copperfield Racquet & Health Club. An acquaintance told me that it's possible she might have seen the shooter's vehicle, and asked me to do a little sleuthing. There is a cautionary tale here (though a long post), so I thought I'd share the details.

It is Harris County Sheriff's Offense Number 160077612; date/time of offense logged as Friday, May 13, 2016, at 23:19; address of record is the 8300 block of Sunbury Lane, Houston, 77095.

The 16-year-old victim, Amanda, left her new--and first--job at a movie theater and walked to a nearby, relatively isolated Wells Fargo standalone ATM at the east end of the parking lot (the least active side of this large and active shopping center and the one closest to the theater), near the northwest corner of the intersection of West Road and Easton Commons Drive.

Link to Google Maps

Within the same large center as the theater, there is an ATM inside a Kroger and, 200 feet farther west and nearer West Road proper, an external one at a Chase branch for after-hours use.

Had she walked a bit out of her way and used the ATM inside Kroger, it's less likely she would have been targeted by the thugs because, unless already following her from inside the grocery store, they would never have known she had made an ATM transaction. And she was clearly targeted for robbery, not another reason.

The Kroger anchors it, but the shopping center is very active and includes everything from the movie theater to a Whataburger to a UPS store to a gym to Mexican and Japanese restaurants. That explains why the attack didn't occur at or near the ATM: too much activity, even if on the low-traffic side. However, there is a big apartment complex (this area, BTW, has the only large concentration of apartments in Copperfield) immediately across West Road, "The Lodge at Copperfield," that sees a lot of foot traffic across the street to the shopping center and back again. That's why it seems logical the felons were in the quiet side of the parking lot that Friday night (payday) watching that isolated Wells Fargo ATM.

The felons saw a very young girl, alone and on foot, walk directly from the movie theater to the ATM, perform a transaction, then begin walking to the intersection and streetlight--probably across the grass, not the sidewalk--at the crossing of West Road and Easton Commons. A camera mounted on the ATM can't capture what happens away from it.

She crossed south at the light.

Easton Commons Drive--at that point two lanes in each direction divided by a median--is still a significant thoroughfare. Amanda walked south on Easton Commons, then took the next left--about 250 yards from West Road--heading southeast onto Sunbury Lane.

Sunbury is a much smaller street leading into an apartment complex, the Copperfield Apartments, and it reaches a dead-end some 550 yards later. The two-lane street has space for apartment residents/guests to parallel park on each side; no doubt spaces were full late on a Friday night..."helping" obscure the street from first-floor view. The attack and shooting occurred on this street about 150 yards from the intersection with Easton Commons.

What makes this so doubly sad is that this was eminently preventable. Casting no dispersion, but let's also remember that Amanda's father has been a county Emergency Services District/EMS dispatcher since at least 2001. He's received a lot of calls about violent, predatory felonies.

To recap:

• It is approximately 23:00 on Friday, May 13, a payday, and there a number of businesses nearby that employ hourly workers--workers who are less likely to use automatic deposit--and that also operate shifts late into the evening.
• The only ATM at the "quiet" side of the large parking lot, the east side near the movie theater, is a standalone Wells Fargo machine; there is no structure of any kind immediately near it.
• A 16-year-old girl gets her first paycheck from her first-ever job at a movie theater.
• She walks alone those few yards directly to that standalone Wells Fargo ATM.
• She conducts her business at the ATM, and probably walks the shortest distance to the light at Easton Commons and West Road: across a stretch of lawn rather than go back to the theater. A signal to the felons that she is alone and expecting no one to pick her up.
• Amanda's total on-foot and alone travel distance that night was about 2,130 feet, or almost half a mile. At almost midnight on a Friday night.
• At that point, on a small street with occupied, apartment-intended parallel parking on each side obscuring first-floor view of the street, two felons--one on foot and one in a car--accost, rob, and then shoot 16-year-old Amanda.
• Luckily, someone in the apartment complex hears her screams and calls 911 rather than ignoring the near-midnight commotion.
• The girl's mother, learning of the shooting, calls the girl's father, a Harris County EMS dispatcher on duty at the time, and informs him.

With the enlightened audience on this Forum, there is no need for me point out every failure in this scenario. Even a single change in any of the sequences of events might have prevented this senseless crime by either completely removing or at least minimizing Amanda as a viable target.

If my assumption about what went down is correct, the two felons are either familiar enough with the area and traffic patterns to live somewhat close by, or at the very least they surveilled the area before deciding how and where to stake-out that isolated ATM for potential victims. The police sketch and description of the shooter is distinctive enough that I sincerely hope someone can identify him and help bring him to justice before he targets his next 16-year-old victim.

http://abc13.com/news/teen-shot-during- ... l/1355758/

I know I'll be watching closely for him. Watching very closely.

[DevilDawg]

You might watch the Peppermill Place as well. My brother lived there for a while and it was a free fire zone on weekend with PD and EMS frequently all hours of the night.