“She lost a kidney,” said Dontee’ Kinney, the father of the 3-year-old victim.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Me’Chelle Kinney, 3, of Fort Worth, is your typical toddler except she just learned to walk again.
On May 1, Me’Chelle was standing outside her apartment building with her family when someone opened fire on a crowd of people.
Her father, Dontee’ Kinney, shared his daughter’s injuries.
“So the side that she took the bullet, initially it came in on the right side, like, right under her armpit, came out on lower and right above the hip. She lost a kidney,” Dontee’ said.
He is still emotional when speaking about the shooting. His daughter is the youngest of six children who suffered gunshot wounds during a drive-by shooting on Las Vegas Trail.
A security camera recorded the victims all running for cover. Doctors released Me’Chelle Thursday morning, just hours before they attended a news conference at New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church on Mississippi Avenue.
“When I heard that it was a three-year-old who had gotten shot. I was just devastated,” Pastor Kyev Tatum said.
The oldest shooting victim, 19-year-old Tanzania Day, participated in the news conference.
She suffered a gunshot wound to her right thigh and requires crutches to walk right now. When it came time to share her story, her aunt stepped in because she was still too emotional to speak publicly about it.
“Tanzania, She came to stay with us after this happened. She wakes up screaming, hollering, crying,” the aunt said.
The Alliance for Children Advocacy Center is helping the victims heal.
Katia Gonzalez has been with the Alliance for Children for over a decade. Gonzalez and her staff can’t talk about the treatment plan for the victims in this case specifically but stress the importance of counseling for the young victims. Her organization has a relationship with law enforcement agencies in Tarrant County.
“It’s a very fluid process. So, you might feel like you’re doing okay at the moment, but then there might be something triggering that brings all of that back,” said Gonzalez.
As the shooting victims wait for police to find the people responsible, parents like Dontee’ are just thankful their children survived. Now his family is not only getting help from the outreach team at the church, but they also have a GoFundMe set up.
“That was all that was important, to see her walk out of the hospital,” Dontee’ said.