Family recounts shooting that left 8-year-old girl dead - News - GoUpstate
Lamya Bradley, an 8-year-old visiting her uncle over the weekend, was playing games with her cousin when she was shot and killed.
She died after being taken to a hospital. One of the 15 bullets that rattled a two-story Gaffney apartment found the back of Bradley’s head while she was on the couch in front of the living room window.
Family members said they are trying to figure out who would do such a thing while police officers are interviewing persons of interest.
Wallace A. Montgomery, Bradley’s uncle, was home at the time of the shooting and ran downstairs after hearing the first shots.
“I came running down the steps and tried to talk to her and tell her to calm down and breathe slow, and that was it, man,” Montgomery said. “She was laying there covered in blood. I kept talking to her, telling her we’d go to Chuck E. Cheese when this was over… Then her body started shaking.”
Coroner Dennis Fowler called the shooting an act of gang violence and said that Bradley was an unintended victim.
Gaffney Police Lt. Ron Ramsey said investigators believe the shooting was committed by someone from a “neighborhood crew” but not necessarily an established gang.
“These are groups of individuals who live in the same neighborhood and grew up together and hang out together,” Ramsey said. “We’ve interviewed people but haven’t arrested anyone yet.”
Ramsey declined to say why investigators think the apartment was shot in the first place.
“The house wasn’t shot randomly," he said. "They picked that apartment on purpose."
Bradley, of Shelby, N.C., was described as loving, friendly and interested in music. She was fond of the social media app Snapchat.
“She’d just hug you. She didn’t have a bit of violence in her body. None at all,” Montgomery said.
Bradley and Thompson's 10-year-old daughter had gone to the skating rink Saturday night and were enjoying the weekend together, Montgomery said.
More than a dozen bullet holes on the apartment’s siding and windows could be seen from the apartment’s parking lot Monday. Shattered glass still covered the front porch from where a bullet had gone through the door.
Montgomery and his father — Bradley’s great-uncle — surveyed the site and recounted which bullets went where inside the apartment.
“That’s what killed my niece. It was that bullet,” Montgomery said, pointing to a bullet hole through the window in front of the couch. “If you’re standing out here, they should have seen the kids playing… They didn’t give a damn.”
Fowler said this was the second fatal shooting that stems from gang violence in as many weeks in Gaffney.
Jasmin McGill, 18, of 106 Brookwood Drive in Gaffney, was found with a gunshot wound to her leg. She was taken to a hospital where she died. Authorities at the time said the shooting stemmed from a large gathering that turned into a gang-related shooting.
No arrests have been made in that case, either.
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