Stockton Family 'Traumatized' After Girl, 9, Shot In Drive-By
STOCKTON (CBS) - A Stockton girl is hospitalized and her family is traumatized, after a drive-by shooting on Saturday.
The girl's family was on Van Gogh Lane in the Western Ranch neighborhood on Saturday afternoon when a car pulled alongside them and started shooting. The 9-year-old was injured but is expected to recover.
"When it involves young children, 9-year-olds that takes it to a whole other level," said Sacramento Police Department spokesperson Ofc. Joe Silva.
Silva said the parents tried to get the 9-year-old to a nearby hospital, but a tire on their vehicle was shot-out and they slowed to a stop. Law enforcement intervened to get the girl to a hospital and treated.
Neighbors that live on Van Gogh Ln. told CBS13 this kind of violence is something they have never seen on their block before.
"It's unreal as to what's going on to these little kids," said Allen Hernanded, a longtime Stockton resident who was in the neighborhood Saturday for a baby shower.
He said he worries about future generations and his own family with, what he called, a change in violence. There are more guns now than there were when he was growing up, he said.
Saturday's shooting is the third incident of gun violence against a 9-year-old in Stockton in two weeks. At the end of March, during a home invasion, a 9-year-old girl was pistol-whipped by intruders, then, days later, a 9-year-old boy was injured in a drive-by shooting at an intersection.