Nightclub fight led to Jazmine Barnes’ mistaken identity slaying, suspect says

The death of the 7-year-old was not the result of a hate crime, as earlier thought, but a conflict between completely unrelated parties

Kia Morgan-Smith

Jan 8, 2019

Jazmine Barnes thegrio.com — Jazmine Barnes/Facebook

Eric Black Jr., the suspect who surrendered and confessed to killing 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes in a drive-by shooting in Texas, appeared in court Monday and described how the girl ended up mistakenly shot to death, KHOU reports.

Black reportedly told authorities that last Saturday he and a man named Larry Woodruffe went to a club the night of Dec. 30 and got into a fight with another person.

Black said he and Woodruffe thought a vehicle, similar to one Barnes’ mother was driving, contained the person they confronted, so they set out to retaliate against him and targeted the car later that night. However, Black and Woodruffe fired into the wrong vehicle which contained Barnes, her mother LaPorsha Washington, and her sisters.

He reportedly said it wasn’t until the next day when he learned that they hit the wrong vehicle with gunfire near a Houston-area Walmart and killed Barnes after a bullet struck her in the head and wounded her mother when a bullet hit her arm.

The funeral for Barnes was held Tuesday.

On Saturday, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office homicide investigators filed a capital murder charge against Black for the fatal shooting of the child.

Woodruffe was reportedly the trigger man and was arrested and jailed on unrelated drug charges.

Journalist and activist Shaun King, has said that he received a tip that Black was involved in the shooting and says he passed it along to Houston police.

Initially, race was thought to be a motive in the shooting as the assailant was described as a white man driving a red pickup truck, seeking to commit a hate crime. King had offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the supposed gunman’s arrest. Rallies took place around Houston demanding justice for Barnes and many questioned why more had not been done to catch the assailant.

Black reportedly also led police to the murder weapon, a .9 mm pistol, revealing that it was still at his house.

On Sunday, the girl’s dad, Christopher Cevilla opened up about the news that his daughter’s alleged killers had been captured after a week-long manhunt that ended with the arrests.

“Now my baby has gotten justice,” Cevilla said outside the Harris County Jail. “Now we can properly put her to rest without having to still be on a manhunt looking for a suspect.”