Shooting of Payton Washington

Shooting of Payton Washington
LocationElgin, Texas, U.S.
Coordinates30°20′46″N 97°23′03″W / 30.3462°N 97.3841°W / 30.3462; -97.3841
DateApril 18, 2023 (2023-04-18)
c. 12:00 a.m. (CST)
Attack type
Shooting
Deaths0
Injured2
AccusedPedro Tello Rodriguez Jr.
ChargesDeadly conduct

Just after midnight on April 18, 2023, competitive cheerleaders Payton Washington and Heather Roth were shot and wounded after Roth mistakenly entered a vehicle she had thought to be hers in an H-E-B supermarket parking lot in Elgin, Texas.[1][2] Washington and Roth were part of a four-person group of cheerleaders who were using the parking lot to carpool from the Round Rock area to Woodlands Elite Cheer Company in Oak Ridge North for practice, a 360-mile round trip.[3]

The shooting gained notoriety for being one of four shootings that occurred in a one-week period in the US that were characterized by young people being met with gunfire after making a mistake. The cheerleaders were shot five days after the shooting of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri after he rang the wrong doorbell, three days after the shooting of Kaylin Gillis in Hebron, New York after she entered the wrong driveway,[4] and earlier on the same day that Kinsley White and her parents were shot by a neighbor in Gastonia, North Carolina, when her basketball rolled into his yard.[5]

  1. ^ "Texas cheerleaders shot after one says she got in wrong car". AP News. April 19, 2023. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  2. ^ Land, Olivia (April 19, 2023). "Texas cheerleader recalls being shot at after mistakenly getting into wrong car". New York Post. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  3. ^ Ryan, Shannon (April 19, 2023). "Man arrested after 2 Woodlands Elite cheerleaders were shot outside HEB near Austin, police say". KTRK-TV. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2023.
  4. ^ Ebrahimji, Alisha; Burnside, Tina (April 19, 2023). "2 cheerleaders were shot in a Texas supermarket parking lot after one opened the door to the wrong vehicle. A suspect is under arrest". CNN. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2023.
  5. ^ Lemon, Ken (April 20, 2023). "Suspect, accused of injuring child, parents in shooting, arrested in Florida". WSOC-TV. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.