Inglewood Girl, 10, Killed by Random Bullet in Drive-by Shooting

As Inglewood police were best able to reconstruct it Tuesday, 10-year-old Dominique Blackshear had been getting ready for bed at her family’s tidy, California-bungalow-style home on West 77th Street in Inglewood when the bullet crashed through a hallway window.

The bullet apparently wasn’t intended for anyone in particular, the officers said. They said it probably was one of a dozen or so fired by two young men--thought to be gang members--in what police refer to as a “drive-by shooting.”

But that random bullet struck the girl in the neck Monday night, and six hours later, despite efforts by a surgical team to save her at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, Dominique Blackshear died on the operating table.

Fellow members of the Faithful Central Baptist Church gathered at the home of a family friend to do what they could to comfort Dominique’s mother, Donna Blackshear, who reportedly was still “too stunned” to talk about the incident.

But the friends, the family minister, the Rev. Kenneth Ulmer, and police pieced together a picture of what happened Monday night, based in part on the accounts of the Blackshears’ neighbors.

They said Dominique, her mother and one of her two adult brothers were in the house at about 9:30 p.m. when the young assailants began “cruising” through the neighborhood in a gold-colored 1966 Chevrolet Impala, firing shots at random.

One of the shots slammed into an outside wall of the Blackshear home, beside the fireplace chimney. Another penetrated the window screen, window pane and a drawn shade before striking Dominique. Whether Dominique could have been seen from the outside, silhouetted against the opaque window shade, was not immediately determined.

The car apparently sped off before anyone could note the license number. Police said they had no immediate suspects in the case. There were no reports that other houses in the neighborhood were hit by gunfire.

Lt. Ray Smith of the Inglewood Police Department said that although no one in the Blackshear family was believed to have any connection with street gangs, the method of attack used by the assailants led investigators to believe that the crime was committed by gang members.

Ulmer said Dominique and her mother had been attending his church for the last two years. He said Dominique, a student at the Crescent Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles, had been active in the church choir.

“They’re a nice family, a quiet family,” said a friend, Shirley Jones. “I guess they’re just people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”