The mother told News4’s Paul Wagner her heart leapt out of her body when her 3-year-old daughter was shot.
A 3-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy are recovering after a bullet hit them in Northeast D.C. Monday night, and the little girl's mother says their neighborhood is like a war zone.
The girl's mother said the boy, their neighbor, was holding her daughter Shakur just outside their front door on 18th Street NE when someone started shooting from a passing car.
“My heart was outside of my body - my soul. I seen my daughter running in the house," Diamond said.
A bullet grazed Shakur's head.
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“I heard the shot and I was like, 'Where did it come from?' and then I saw blood trickling down my daughter's face, so I started to apply pressure," she said.
The boy was shot in the leg.
Diamond said her first reaction was to get the children into a car and head to a hospital.
"And I thank God that they are both OK. It's been a war zone since I got here," Diamond said.
Seven people have been killed in the neighborhood in the past two years, according to D.C.'s crime map. In March, a woman was shot and killed in front of two small children at the corner of 18th Street and Benning Road.
“My baby, my 3-year-old daughter could have lost her life for a simple act of violence that had nothing to do with her. My baby is sitting there with her head wrapped," Diamond said while holding back tears.
Investigators said the motive in the shooting might have been an argument.
One shell casing was recovered from the scene.
