Cameras Did Not Record Road Rage Shooting Of 9-Year-Old; Officials Offer $30K For Details

The officials are seeking public help in identifying the suspects in the road rage shooting of a 9-year-old Houston girl as the incident was not recorded by the city cameras. A reward of $30K has been offered to anyone with details of the incident, authorities said Monday.

Ashanti Grant, the 9-year-old girl from Brazoria County, was shot in the head while she was in the back seat of her parents’ SUV on the way to a grocery store with her family last week. The shooting that happened on Southwest Freeway is suspected to be a road rage incident, police said. Grant is still in critical condition and is fighting for life, as reported by New York Post.

"Someone knows who the shooter is, and I encourage that person to pick up the phone and call Crime Stoppers... We are not just going to walk away from this incident," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news release.

The cameras in the city, managed by Houston’s transportation agency, TranStar, had stopped recording and were only monitoring live traffic conditions following an agreement. The decision was made after the law enforcement officials had to face several civil lawsuits.

“Some time ago, a decision was made with all the different partners at TranStar, not to video-record," Turner said. "When you’re dealing with road rage, what would have been helpful were to have these cameras to video record the traffic so that you can go back and replay. We could have gone to the recordings and zoomed in," he added.

The officials said they would be reversing the decision to stop recording as the surveillance would help them in tracking down criminals and getting evidence of crimes.

Meanwhile, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner assured that the recordings would be used only for criminal cases and would not be used in traffic court. "Some of those individuals [are] saying there’s too much surveillance, but this is a different time, and nobody is going to use that surveillance equipment to violate anybody’s rights," Finner said.

Grant was with her 12-year-old brother in her family's car when a white GMC Denali pickup truck cut off their vehicle several times. The driver of the truck who is described as a Hispanic male, between 20 and 30 years old, then opened fire on the family's car, police said, ABC 13 reported.

After the shooting, the injured girl was taken to a hospital where she underwent surgery. She has been in a medically-induced coma since the surgery.