MIAMI – Seven-year-old Alana Washington died after a drive-by shooting. She was shot in the head and brain dead at Jackson Memorial Hospital, relatives said. Her twin brother, Aaden, is devastated.
Ruth Ramirez, an employee at Alana’s school, said she was worried about Alana’s mother, Shanlauie Drayton, 43, who was already suffering during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Alana was a super loveable, calm, and sweet, shy girl,” Ramirez wrote in a GoFundMe to benefit Drayton. “When she would finally come out of her shell, Alana would show her goofy, silly side. She loved to write and learn Math. And she loved her twin brother.”
Two-year-old Alto Jacobs III, a man, and a woman were also wounded when bullets started flying at about 8 p.m. on Saturday at Northwest 51st Street and Northwest 29th Avenue in Brownsville. Drayton is asking the public for help in catching the shooter who targeted her home.
“We need our community to come forward with information on who is responsible for this cowardly act,” Director Alfredo Ramirez III wrote on Twitter on Monday morning.
Miami-Dade Commission Chairwoman Audrey M. Edmonson announced there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. It later increased to $15,000.
On Monday afternoon, Edmonson, Ramirez and other Miami-Dade County community leaders met for a news conference at the crime scene.
State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and Tangela Sears, an advocate for mothers who have lost their children to gun violence, were among the leaders who made public pleas for help.
“Somebody knows something, and you are just as responsible if you know something and you are not saying anything,” Sears said.
Detectives are asking anyone with information to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
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