Man arrested after 2 Woodlands Elite cheerleaders were shot outside HEB near Austin:
Two members of an elite competitive cheerleading team in Oak Ridge were shot Tuesday morning after one of the athletes reportedly mistakenly tried to get into the wrong car after practice.
The four young women drove from the Round Rock area to Woodlands Elite Cheer Company in Oak Ridge three times each week for practice. They used the Elgin H-E-B as a carpool lot for the approximately 360-mile round-trip.
Roth said there was a man sitting in the passenger seat, so she initially panicked, thinking a stranger was inside her car, and got back into her friend’s vehicle.
Just after midnight, cheerleader Heather Roth said she got out of her friend’s car and opened the door to a vehicle she believed to be her own in the H-E-B parking lot.
When she noticed the man approach their vehicle, she said she rolled down the window to apologize, telling him she thought it was her car.
Roth said the man threw up his hands, pulled out a gun, and started shooting. ABC13 has verified the testimony with Bastrop County sources.
According to officers, Roth suffered a graze wound and was treated and released on the scene, but her teammate, Payton Washington, was shot in the leg and the back.
Washington was flown to a nearby hospital in critical condition.
An affidavit states that the H-E-B manager witnessed the gunman “shoot at the vehicle multiple times” before fleeing the area.”Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood,” Roth said.
In an Instagram live Tuesday evening, a coach said Washington, an incoming athlete for Baylor’s Acrobatic and Tumbling team, suffered damage to multiple organs and had her spleen removed. She is expected to undergo additional surgeries throughout the week.
