A Texas high school cheerleader says she tries not to think about the man who allegedly shot her after a teammate mistakenly entered her car in a supermarket parking lot.
Payton Washington, 18, told ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday: “He did what he did, and I’m just going to try to get over it, there’s no point in me really trying to think about what he did.”
“I’m just trying to do everything I can to be normal and do everything a high school senior would do,” Washington said.
Washington suffered three gunshot wounds and teammate Heather Roth was grazed by a bullet in the shootout.
The incident came after Roth said he had the wrong vehicle in Elgin, east of Austin, in April. Realizing his mistake, he got out and headed to the vehicle where the other cheerleaders were sitting, including Washington. A man approached the car.
Roth has stated that she rolled down her window to apologize to him when he started shooting. Police identified the man as Pedro Tello Rodríguez Jr.
Washington said she did not immediately realize she was injured, but later saw blood on her car seat and felt pain in her abdomen as the cheerleaders sped away in her vehicle.
Washington said he was shot twice in the hip and once in the back, and that the wound damaged his stomach and led to the removal of his spleen and part of his pancreas.
Rodriguez was taken into custody and charged with engaging in deadly conduct, a third degree felony.
A lawyer for Rodriguez did not immediately return a phone call for comment Friday morning.
The shooting came days after two high-profile shootings that occurred after victims went to the wrong addresses.
In one case, a black teenager was shot and wounded after going to the wrong house in Kansas City, Missouri to pick up his younger siblings. In the other, a woman looking for a friend’s house in upstate New York was shot and killed after the car she was traveling in took the wrong direction.
