A case of apparent road rage led to the shooting of a two-year-old girl in East Dallas on Sunday evening, according to police.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the toddler was critically injured when a man fired shots into the vehicle where the child was sitting in the 8500 block of Sweetwater Drive at about 8:15 p.m. on August 25.
Dallas police said the young victim and her parents were in the neighborhood near I-30 and Ferguson Road to make a DoorDash delivery when they encountered a man on a motorcycle with no lights on. The girl’s father, who was driving the family vehicle, swerved to avoid hitting the man and honked the car horn.
The family told police that the man then honked his motorcycle horn and began following their car around the neighborhood, shouting at them. At one point, the man, identified by police as 50-year-old Jason Cain, allegedly fired a gun multiple times at the car, twice striking the young child who was in the back seat of the vehicle.
Cain, who initially spoke with officers at the scene, told police that “drug dealers that were involved in the shooting were down the street,” Fox 4 KDFW reported.
However, multiple witnesses reported seeing the motorcyclist, accompanied by a dog sitting in a sidecar, following the gray sedan, and they identified Cain, a resident of the neighborhood, as the shooter. Police also obtained video evidence of the shooting.
Although Cain purportedly resisted at first when officers went to his home to arrest him, he eventually complied and was taken into custody. Police searched his home and reportedly found multiple firearms, Satanic symbols, and Nazi emblems.
Cain has been charged with one count of injury to a child and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and his bond has been set at $850,000.
The two-year-old shooting victim is in the hospital in stable condition, according to police.
The shooting occurred in District 7, represented by Council Member Adam Bazaldua. His district has logged more than 600 aggravated assaults so far this year, more than any other district.
A chronic shortage of police officers and a limited budget has added to the woes of the Dallas Police Department, which is struggling to keep crime from getting out of control. The crime rate in Downtown Dallas, in particular, is much higher than in neighboring Fort Worth, where dedicated police units and private security work together to secure the downtown area.
