Mesquite Mother Shot in Front of Daughter

Police say shooting was not random

A Mesquite woman was critically injured Wednesday morning when she was shot in the chest after opening her front door.

Mesquite police said the man shot the woman in the 2100 block of Bent Brook Drive after knocking on her door at about 7:40 a.m. He then fled in a white pickup truck.

The woman's 8-year-old daughter knocked on a neighbor's door for help.

"I heard a very loud knock -- the kind you know is a frantic kind of knock -- so I hurried to the door, and it was the little girl that lives next door, and she was saying, 'Help me, help me. My mommy's been hurt,'" Betty Strickland said.

Stickland quickly called 911, and police arrived shortly after.

Stickland said the girl was worried about her mother.

"She was extremely worried about her mom," she said. "She kept saying, 'Tell them to hurry, please. My mommy is going to die, please hurry.'"

The victim was rushed to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas.

Police said it was not a random shooting and said they are investigating the shooter's possible tie to the family.

Mesquite police spokesman Lt. Bill Hedgpeth said police are not identifying the victim until the gunman is caught.

A neighbor walking her dog caught sight of the shooter when he ran away.

"I saw this man coming out of the house, and he was sprinting for dear life and turned really fast, and I thought it was kind of weird, but I didn't think anything of it," Tatiana Thomas said.

Thomas got a call from police asking for information.

"My first thought is that, if this guy had looked my way, I could have been in trouble too," she said. "But when I saw the man he was wearing a dark navy sweatshirt and these crazy baggy sweatpants that were at his bottom."

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