Houston-area 14-year-old shot to death while visiting family in Alabama

MOBILE, Alabama (KTRK) -- Two children, including a girl from the Houston area, were shot and killed after just two days in the city of Mobile, Alabama.

The girl, identified as 14-year-old Ciara Jackson, was riding in a car with friends last Tuesday night when they "encountered people with guns" who intentionally shot into their vehicle, officials told WALA.

"There are men and women off-camera that have shed tears, that are heartbroken just like I am, that are saying, 'When is enough enough?'" said Mobile Police Department spokesman Sgt. John Young.

A former teacher whose daughter was best friends with Ciara said that the teen was an incoming freshman at Waller High School.

A balloon release was held in Hockley. Ciara lived with her grandmother in Hockley, according to a friend.

Ciara's grandmother says she had just seen the teen the Saturday before she left for Mobile to visit family while on summer break.

According to Assistant District Attorney Louis Walker, the alleged shooters were on the street when firing shots, and one of them denied trying to hit Ciara.

"I ain't do it. It was an accident. It was an accident," said 18-year-old Lamonyae Forrest as he was arrested.

Forrest and a 16-year-old, who was not named because he is a minor, are both charged with capital murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle.

"Ciara's 14. She died on the street named after Michael Donald, who was the last known lynching by the Ku Klux Klan, in 1980. Forty years later, more innocent blood is shed on that street that's supposed to memorialize the death sacrificed," said Young.

Another person was arrested in the separate shooting death of an 11-year-old child.

Authorities offered few details on that homicide such as what types of guns were used or how many shots were fired.

A GoFundMe has been started to help Ciara's family with funeral costs.