A suspect has been arrested after shooting two Texas cheerleaders after one of them mistook his car for their own in a supermarket parking lot.
Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was arrested early Tuesday. He’s being held on a $500,000 bond and has been charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.
Officers responded to reports of shots fired at an H-E-B supermarket around 12:15 a.m. local time Tuesday and found two people shot in a vehicle, police said.
Payton Washington sustained serious injuries after being shot in the leg and the back and was rushed by helicopter to a hospital, while Heather Roth suffered a graze wound and was treated at the scene.
A group of Woodlands Elite Cheer Co. cheerleaders, who typically carpool to practice, were on their way back to the Austin area late Monday and stopped at an H-E-B, where some of them had parked their cars. Roth said she had gotten out of a friend’s car and opened the door to a vehicle she thought was hers, only to notice a man sitting in the passenger seat. She panicked and got back into her friend’s vehicle, the report said.
“As we’re backing up, I see the guy get out of the passenger door, and I roll my window down, and I was trying to apologize to him. And then he… threw his hands up, and he pulled out a gun, and then, he just started shooting at all of us,” Roth said during a prayer vigil Tuesday.
Washington is said to be in stable condition but remains in the ICU after undergoing surgery to remove her ruptured spleen.
Kelan Washington, Payton’s father told NBC News his daughter was born with just one lung and is “as tough as they come.”
“Payton’s accomplished everything she has with only one lung [from] when she was born. She’s as tough as they come,” he said.
Let’s continue to keep them lifted up in prayer.
