A family wants justice after 16-year-old Tanaejah Atterbury was shot and killed in Fort Lauderdale on Monday night. NBC6’s Niko Clemmons reports
A family wants justice after a 16-year-old girl was shot and killed in Fort Lauderdale Monday night.
Tanaejah Atterbury was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the family said.
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WATCH HEREShraday Heller said several people were fighting on Northwest 8th Avenue, where her daughter was standing around watching.
Someone pulled out a gun and started shooting. Seconds later, she saw her daughter on the ground.
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Atterbury later died at the hospital.
“All I thought, my baby, was they hit her, but when I picked her up, I saw the blood, and she said, 'Mommy, I'm OK, I'm OK,'" Heller said. “As a mother, I had to see my child bleeding, and that hurts me.”
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“My baby didn't deserve this, y'all shot at my child, my child was laying on the ground fighting for her life and she couldn't fight no more,” Heller said.
Taneajah was Heller's middle child. She was loving, did well in school, and overall, was a good girl.
“She was just looking, now she's gone, she's gone,” Atterbury’s grandmother Angeletta Thomas-Keel said. “It's ridiculous how these young kids with guns shoot just to show what they can do, it caused a family to be broken.”
“These young people think they can pick up a gun and think it's OK, they don't know we hurting,” Atterbury’s aunt Shanell Heller said. They took a grandchild, daughter, niece, cousin, friend.”
The family is now searching for answers and peace. Police are still searching for the shooter.
“This gun violence needs to stop, to all these young kids, y'all have to stop,” Heller said. “Y'all took my child from me.”
Detectives are still trying to piece together what happened. The circumstances surrounding this incident are still under investigation and anyone with information is encouraged to contact Fort Lauderdale Police immediately.
