ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — An 18-year-old man has charged in a shooting that left at 10-year-old girl injured.
Avantay Williams was charged with two different counts of first-degree assault. He’s being held on a $250,000 cash-only, no 10% bond.
The charges stem from a shooting the evening of Feb. 28 in north St. Louis County.
Ten-year-old Jada Hubbard told 5 On Your Side she walked from her home to a convenience store near the 10000 block of Earl Drive with her 18-year-old cousin. She said it was supposed to be a quick, uneventful trip, but on the way back home that changed.
"We had just started walking back home and then we heard the gunshots," Jada recalled a few days after the shooting.
The fourth grader immediately saw she had been shot in her buttocks.
"I felt the gunshot and I just took off running. I dropped everything even my shoes," the girl said.
Jada’s mom, Jacqulyn Gilmore, heard the gunshots from her kitchen. She called 911 when she saw her daughter was injured. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital.
"We got into surgery. By the grace of God, it was nothing but a flesh wound," said Gilmore.
While talking with 5 On Your Side’s Robert Townsend, Gilmore made a startling discovery. She found the bullet that grazed her daughter. It had been stuck inside the little girl’s winter coat.
“This coat right here was the shield that God gave my baby to protect her. I'm eternally grateful,” Gilmore said.
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Court documents reveal further details about what happened the night Jada was grazed by a bullet.
The probable cause statement says Jada, her cousin and her cousin’s friend — identified as Victim Ford — were on their way to the convenience store when Ford saw a man he knew. That man left the scene.
As the group walked back to their home, Ford said the man reappeared and started shooting at them, with one of those bullets hitting Jada.
Ford told police he has had an ongoing dispute with the man who shot at them, whom he later identified as Avantay Williams.
Police searched Williams’ home, found a gun and arrested him. After being read his Miranda rights, police said Williams confessed to the crime. He said he waited to confront Victim Ford and then fired four gunshots. He also said Ford returned fire.
No other charges in the case have been announced.