‘She’s hit.’ Woman recalls fatal shooting of son that injured 1-year-old granddaughter
_fitted.jpeg "Tamika Wesley’s 1-year-old granddaughter lies in a hospital bed with a cast on her right arm after she was shot in the hand during a shooting in Fort Worth, TX on March 9 that killed her father. Wesley said the girl has been recovering at home.")
Tamika Wesley sat upright in bed with her 1-year-old granddaughter, who had stirred awake sometime around 1 a.m. after falling asleep earlier than usual. The well-rested infant, now filled with energy, began to stumble back and forth between her grandmother’s room and the room of her 25-year-old father, Jaden Williams. She wanted to play.
Close to 1:30, as Wesley remembers, Williams headed for the front door of their apartment in east Fort Worth, apparently to meet someone. His daughter cried out to come with him, and though Williams at first told her he would be right back, he gave in. Wesley could hear him say “OK” as he scooped her up. She heard the front door swing open.
The next thing she heard was the deafening pop-pop-pop of gunshots, fired in quick succession.
They sounded like they were right outside her wall.
Wesley, 46, told the Star-Telegram she ran out the front door on that March 9 morning as the sound of gunfire subsided, and could see two men running away as well as the two victims they left behind. Her granddaughter was lying in the lawn outside their apartment, near the pool, sobbing. She hoisted the child into her arms and moved toward her son, a couple of apartment buildings down.
He was shot several times all over his body, Wesley said, but was conscious, even able to give his mother a thumbs up. She told him to look at her and to think of his two young daughters, and that he had too much to lose.
Wesley didn’t realize until she saw the blood spreading across her granddaughter’s white onesie that the child had been shot. A bullet passed through her right hand, striking her middle and ring finger, and grazed her shoulder.
“That’s when I realized she’s actually — she’s hit,” Wesley said in a telephone interview.
She didn’t have her phone on her so she pounded on neighbors’ doors, pleading for someone to call 911. Ambulances soon arrived and her son and granddaughter were rushed away to a hospital, with Williams in critical condition and his daughter stable.
Though he made it through a surgery, Williams, known to many in Fort Worth by his rapping name Dopeboy Yungn, died on March 11 with his mother and father by his side. His daughter received stitches and a bandage on her right shoulder, and a cast on her right hand.
In the weeks that have passed since the shooting, the child has been recovering at home and is mostly frustrated she can’t use her right hand, Wesley said. She told the Star-Telegram last week that doctors recently discovered she had broken her left clavicle from her fall into the yard.
Wesley believes, because Williams and his daughter were so far apart when she found them, he must have thrown her to safety as he ran away from the men pursuing him.
“The scene I saw, when I stepped outside, is something you never want to see,” Wesley said over the phone, beginning to cry. “I know my son gave his life trying to save his daughter’s life.”
A Fort Worth police spokesman said the department has no updates to share on the investigation into the shooting. Police have said the incident was possibly gang-related.
Wesley, though she doesn’t know who was outside waiting for her son, acknowledged her son had made mistakes in his life that may have caught up with him. Sometimes, she said, “your past doesn’t let you step to your present.”
In March 2014, Fort Worth police said Williams charged at an officer with a raised tire iron after he was involved in a burglary at an apartment complex. A second officer shot Williams, who then threw the tire iron at the first officer, striking him in the head. Williams spent five years in prison on multiple charges including aggravated assault on a public servant.
About two years after his release, in April 2020, Williams was arrested on a murder charge in connection with the Jan. 9, 2020 fatal shooting of Anjonae J. Eubanks. He was the third person to be arrested in connection with the incident, after two teenage males were charged in February 2020. A fourth suspect was arrested in April 2020.
One of these other suspects confessed to detectives he was driving an SUV and a guy named Jaden and another individual got out to shoot up the house, according to a heavily redacted arrest warrant provided by police. The individual told detectives the home belonged to another suspect’s “baby mama’s” new boyfriend.
A woman, whose name was also redacted, stated to police in March 2020 that Williams told her son he and another person had shot up a house belonging to someone’s baby mama’s boyfriend.
Williams committed the offense of murder, police concluded in the warrant, by shooting the victim “in the head with a firearm.” Witnesses at the home indicated there was a knock followed by several gunshots that went through multiple walls, according to the warrant.
Williams denied being involved.
Responding to her son’s past arrests, Wesley said Williams expressed regret over the 2014 incident and told her he had nothing to do with the January 2020 murder. She believes he was arrested because of his association with criminals. His attorney, she said, stood up at his funeral to present his case for innocence in front of mourners.
Wesley’s main concern moving forward is getting justice for her son, whom she believes was more than what headlines may indicate, and for her sweet and innocent granddaughter.
“Luckily, we still have her,” Wesley said. “It’s just a horrible situation for a good kid.”
‘She’s a tough cookie’
Her granddaughter is too young to understand what happened on the night of March 9, or why she has to wear the bandages and cast that too often get in her way.
The child’s mother has been staying in their home, Wesley said, and won’t leave her side as she slowly recovers. They have been keeping her on Tylenol and Motrin for any pain, though she rarely seems to make a fuss about her injuries or discomfort. She’s still active around the house, in search of play.
“She’s a tough cookie,” Wesley said.
One day, Wesley said, she’ll tell the girl about her father and what happened to him. “She needs to know her father gave his life for her,” she said.
She described her son as an outgoing person who grew up loving to play youth football in Fort Worth’s Como neighborhood and began to rap by the age of 12. As an adult, newly out of prison, he rapped about his two young daughters — one of whom lives in Dallas — and the Fort Worth community he grew up in. He liked to freestyle rap, as well as put pen to paper.
Kristi Reed-Terrell, a family friend, started a GoFundMe for funeral expenses after she spoke with Wesley and learned they had no life insurance.
Family and friends additionally need closure, she said. She hopes those responsible turn themselves in.
“Something actually has to be wrong with them within their life because you should not just be out shooting at individuals, and let alone a child,” Reed-Terrell said. “The family needs justice.”
Her heart goes out to Wesley’s granddaughter, and said the senseless shooting has left her saddened and sickened.
That night is still hard for Wesley to comprehend.
Who, she wonders, would do something like that?
“I couldn’t even imagine a person with a heart like that,” Wesley said. “A child? Really?”
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
