‘They didn’t care.’ 8-year-old girl shot in drive-by while asleep in Charlotte home
The band of neighborhood children returning home from school Monday afternoon was missing one 8-year-old girl.
Instead of dancing in the front yard, playing and making TikTok videos, she was in the hospital — with a gunshot wound to the head and without feeling in one side of her body.
Olivia Velez — while sleeping at home — was shot Monday around 1 a.m. after a drive-by shooting on Burbank Drive, according to her family and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. As of late afternoon, the 8-year-old was in stable condition but had serious injuries.
Olivia — a “girly little girl” with a big heart and a big mouth — did absolutely nothing to deserve it, said the girl’s grandmother, Joretha Campbell.
“Whoever did this is cruel,” she said. “And whoever did this didn’t believe in God, clearly.”
Campbell and her 10-year-old daughter walked into the house moments before shots were fired, Campbell said. In the home were their new puppies and about 15 people: Olivia’s family, including her siblings, aunts and uncles.
Many of them woke up to see their energetic girl shot in the head, she said.
“Seeing her like that is way too much,” Campbell said.
Campbell didn’t know what problem could have spurred someone to target the house but said whatever it was could have been solved with a conversation — not shots fired at children.
“They didn’t care anything about my grandbaby or anything about my kids or anything about my family, period,” she said.
Ann Douglas, 72, is used to seeing the kids playing in their front yard by 3 p.m. every day. Now, the yard sits with abandoned toys, tricycles and chairs, but no children.
Bullet holes pierced through the home’s front window, and a car was parked on the curb with its back windshield shattered.
Douglas has lived in the University Park neighborhood of single family homes for 10 years. She said the house has recently been shot at at least three other times, but his was the first time anyone was hurt.
CMPD’s crime map shows two gun-related police calls on the street in recent months — one in February, one in March. The police department’s incident-tracking map shows results by street block, not narrowly tied to specific homes or addresses. It’s unclear whether officers have been called to the girl’s home previously.
Douglas didn’t hear the gunshots early Monday morning but woke up to reporters flocking and neighbors talking. When she heard the family’s first granddaughter had been shot, she couldn’t believe it.
“That hit a nerve this morning,” she said. “She’ll be traumatized for the rest of her life.”
Campbell had one message for the shooter, who police are still looking for.
“I hope you have your judgment day,” she said. “Most of all I hope don’t have kids, because you reap what you sow.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600 or charlottecrimestoppers.com.
This story was originally published April 24, 2023 at 5:54 PM.
