Two-year-old girl is shot dead in the arms of her stepfather during botched mugging at a Brazilian bus terminal
A two-year-old girl was killed in the arms of her stepfather during a failed mugging attempt inside a bus terminal in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
Little Lorena dos Santos was with Jefferson Tavares, 34, when a gunman approached the pair and tried to rob them Wednesday at the bus station in the Pernambuco city of Recife.
Brazilian online news portal G1 reported that dos Santos was sitting on her stepfather's lap and tried to run from the gunman, who shot the pair and immediately fled.
Dos Santos was struck in the head and abdomen, and was rushed to a hospital in the Recife neighborhood of Caxanga, where she died from her injuries.
Little Lorena dos Santos was with her stepdad Jefferson Tavares, 34, when a gunman approached the pair and tried to rob them Wednesday at the bus station in the Pernambuco city of Recife
Tavares suffered four gunshot wounds to the arm, hand and abdomen, and was treated at Restauração Hospital. He was discharged Thursday morning.
'I had stopped at an animal stand to play. kept walking with my little girl, but she asked for his arm,' grieving mother Sonora dos Santos recalled.
'She called him father. He had a great love for my daughter. He put her in the arm and kept walking.'
Investigators told TV Globo that they were looking into whether the shooting was sparked due to a dispute between Tavares and the shooter.
Authorities are investigating whether the shooter and Jefferson Tavares had a previous history
Grieving mother Sonora dos Santos said she is not aware that her husband had any problems that would have made him the target of the shooter who attempted to mug him before her daughter was shot and killed
However, dos Santos said she did not know of if Tavares had any problems that may have contributed to the deadly shooting at the bus terminal.
'There was no threat, no, because I always used his cell phone, he left it without a password and there was nothing,' dos Santos said. 'He came home from work and (would go) for a walk with her.'
Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, has been plagued by a series of shootings over the last eight days in which a three-year-old girl suffered two gunshot wounds and two children were nearly struck.