14-year-old girl shot outside Whitehaven community center

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A 14-year-old girl was shot Thursday outside a Whitehaven community center after a fight, police say.

Police said her injuries were not critical. The suspect, a female, fled the scene in a black sedan with two other females.

Officers just responded just before 4 p.m. to the 4300 block of Graceland Drive. Police said the shooting did not occur inside the community center, but photos show the building surrounded with crime scene tape.

A witness at the scene said it stemmed from an argument about two weeks ago.

The fight Thursday, which according to witnesses was between the victim and the suspect’s daughter, was supposed to be one-on-one. But witnesses said two adults stepped in after seeing one of the children losing.

“I guess she saw her daughter losing, so she decided to jump in and it escalated from there,” said Jamayah Leake, a friend of the victim and a witness.

One of those adults allegedly pepper-sprayed the area, then fired a warning shot before pointing the gun at the children.

Witnesses at the scene said the next shot went toward the victim, injuring the young girl.

“They saw the daughter was on the ground, then she went into the car, got the gun and she shot one time in the air, came back, got up close shot her in the arm and then she shot the car two times,” said Mya Higgenbottom, another friend of the victim and witness to the shooting.

Cheryl Cobb was trying to pick up her granddaughter and says she got nothing but silence from one of the suspects.

“I walked up to the man and I said, please don’t let the kids fight,” Cobb said.

Cobb says one man and another woman had walked up to the fight, but didn’t break it up.

“It was really dumb, like that is all I can tell you, over a little fight,” said Leake. “A fight that little, it never should have got this big and became this big of a problem. Nobody should have got hurt from gun violence or none of that over a little fight that happened between a boy and a girl two weeks ago. It was two weeks ago, why are we still on this?”

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