Texas shooting: More than $190,000 raised for toddler shot in face during gun rampage
Hundreds of thousands of dollars has been raised for a toddler shot in the face during a gun rampage in Texas which has killed at least seven people and injured 22.
Anderson Davis, a 17-month-old girl, was wounded by bullet fragments when a 36-year-old gunman went on a shooting spree in the cities of Midland and Odessa on Saturday. She suffered serious injuries to her mouth, lips and tongue.
A GoFundMe page, set up by family friend Haylee Wilkerson, has so far raised more than $190,000 (£157,000) to help pay for the child's recovery.
The girl's mother, whose name has not been given, told Texas governor Greg Abbott that despite her injuries, she still wants to "run around and play".
“This is all of our worst nightmare, but thank God she’s alive and relatively well,” Mr Abbott said, reading out the mother’s message. "Toddlers are funny because they can get shot and still want to run around and play. We are thanking God for that.”
Mr Abbott said the mother had revealed the girl would have surgery on Monday. According to the GoFundMe page, Anderson "has a hole through her bottom lip and tongue and her front teeth were knocked out".
Details about the Labor Day weekend shooting and the names of some of the victims were emerging online and from officials on Sunday and early Monday. Police continued to comb through 15 different crime scenes in neighbouring Midland and Odessa.
The gunman had been sacked from his truck-driving job in Odessa on Saturday morning, the New York Times and other media reported.
The bloodshed began just hours later when two state troopers pulled over a car on Interstate 20 and the lone occupant fired at their patrol vehicle with a rifle, wounding one of them.
Armed with an AR-type rifle, the suspect drove away, spraying gunfire indiscriminately, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement.
At one point, he abandoned his vehicle and hijacked a postal van and mortally wounded the postal carrier, who was identified as Mary Grandos, 29.
He was later cornered by officers in the car park of a cinema complex in Odessa. He was shot and killed.
"There are no definitive answers as to motive or reasons at this point, but we are fairly certain that the subject did act alone," Odessa police chief Michael Gerke said at a news conference.
"She didn't deserve this," the tearful twin sister of Ms Grandos said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. "I was talking to her on the phone and she said she heard gunshots but didn't know where they were coming from.
"I heard her screaming," Rosie Grandos said. "I was hearing her cry and scream for help. I didn't know what was happening."
The Washington Post reported that others among the dead were Edwin Peregrino, 25, who was killed outside of the home he moved into a few weeks ago.
Also killed was Leilah Hernandez, 15, who had just celebrated a coming of age party, the newspaper reported.
Joseph Griffith, 40, was reportedly killed as he waited at a traffic light with his wife and two children.
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CBS7 News anchors evacuated from studio live on air due to threat of active shooter in Odessa Texas
Three police officers were shot and wounded – one from Midland, one from Odessa and one state trooper – and were in a stable condition.
It was the second mass shooting in Texas in four weeks. On 3 August, a gunman from the Dallas area killed 22 people in another Saturday shooting at a Walmart store about 255 miles west of Midland in the city of El Paso, Texas.
President Donald Trump called the Odessa-Midland shooter "a very sick person", but said background checks on gun buyers would not have prevented recent US gun violence.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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