PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Police have arrested the woman they say shot a 7-month-old boy in the leg in Holmesburg on Thursday.
Dominique Billips, 28, of Oxford Circle, was taken into custody by police on Friday night.
Police Lieutenant Dennis Rosenbaum said the public’s help, including a tip with the suspect’s name, helped move the investigation forward.
“With all the help of the public — from the tip and the great video from the store owners and merchants along that stretch of Frankford Avenue — we were able to quickly resolve and have her in custody in a little over 24 hours,” he said.
The incident captured on nearby surveillance video showed a woman — who police say was Billips — aim a gun at a mother and her infant in a stroller along the sidewalk. After a brief exchange of words, the woman fires at the mother and misses then shoots into the stroller, striking the toddler in the leg.
It happened on Meridian Street just off Frankford Avenue in Holmesburg during the early evening.
A neighbor took the child to the hospital. Officials say the parents were afraid of being arrested for their own outstanding arrest warrants. The boy was first taken to Nazareth Hospital before police transported him to Jefferson-Torresdale, where he was placed in stable condition.
Eventually, police found the parents and interviewed them to help the investigation.
According to investigators, the argument with Billips stemmed from a $100 drug debt.
“It’s sad,” said Rosenbaum. “You've seen that video, she literally points the gun at the mother of the baby who's also a juvenile and fires. Luckily she missed… that's probably when the baby got hit.”