Tikiya Allen Detroit woman, 18, killed by crossfire while riding bike; no arrests as police seek fleeing car with 3 to 4 occupants who had shot into a group.
Here we go again. An 18 year old Michigan woman has died after getting caught in crossfire after a shooter opened gunfire, fatally striking the teen girl as she rode a bike outside a Detroit housing complex.
Tikiya Allen, 19 was shot while on her bicycle outside of a friend’s duplex in the area of Pingree and Linwood around 4:30 p.m, Wednesday afternoon.
Police said someone in a red Taurus automobile opened gunfire on a group of people who were hanging out before fleeing. Along with Allen, police told of a 20 year old man sitting in a vehicle being struck and seriously injured. The man remained in critical condition FOX2Detroit reported.
According to interim Detroit Police Chief James White, it’s not believed that Allen was the one the shooters were aiming for. It remained unclear if the man had been the intended victim or another accidental victim.
‘We know that Ms. Allen was not the intended target at this point,’ White said. ‘It appears – all indications – that she was caught in the crossfire of someone who made a horrible decision to use a weapon to resolve whatever dispute that they were having.’
‘You just don’t shoot nobody innocent’
Allen, a nursing student at Oakland University, dreamt of becoming an anesthesiologist according to her family.
‘You just don’t shoot nobody innocent. You took somebody life and loved one. It wasn’t meant for her,’ Kai Cooks, Allen’s mother told FOX2Detroit. ‘I want the killer off the street that did this.’
Detroit police Chief James White said he does not believe the shooting was random. WDIV reported police saying there were three to four men in the getaway vehicle who had yet to be identified or arrested.
Detroit police released surveillance footage of a Ford Taurus with a distinctive paint job they said was a suspect vehicle.
Addressing the public, Chief White made a plea for the violence to stop and asked for anyone who had information about the shooting to come forward.
‘It’s absolutely unacceptable,’ the police chief said. ‘Everybody has got too tired of this tired of me telling this story over and over again.’
A GoFundMe account has been started to raise money for Allen’s funeral.
