The parents of a three-year-old boy who was shot in the head and killed this week have been arrested.
Police have said the boy’s mother told law enforcement that her son was killed in a road rage incident, but that they have found no evidence to support this version of events, court records state according to The Dallas Morning News.
Jalexus Washington Jr, 3, died on Monday after being shot in the head and taken to Medical Dallas City Hospital.
His mother, 26-year-old Lacravionne Washington, 26, brought Jalexus to the hospital at around 10am. His autopsy showed that the gunshot that killed him was fired from close range, dismissing the possibility that he was killed by a shot from a passing car, legal filings show.
Ms Washington and her husband Jalexus Washington Sr were arrested on Wednesday for outstanding traffic warrants. While police said the mother declined to speak with investigators, court records state that the father gave a voluntary statement.
Charged with endangering a child and tampering with evidence, Ms Washington was held on Thursday in Dallas County Jail.
Jail records reveal that she’s also the subject of warrants for failure to use a child safety seat and speeding.
According to the police, a forensic analysis found that a gun found on the father was the weapon that was used to shoot the child.
Police said on Thursday night that Ms Washington has been charged with evidence tampering because she “concealed a handgun during the investigation,” The Dallas Morning News reported.
Her bail for the charge of endangerment was set at $25,000. The bail for evidence tampering hasn’t been set. She doesn’t have an attorney registered in court records to speak on her behalf.
Mr Washington was arrested and charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon. After posting a $1,500 bond, he was released on Thursday.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said four of the couple’s other children are now with a relative. They are two, four, seven, and nine years old.
Police say that the three-year-old was seen with his mother at a doughnut shop in northeast Dallas on Monday about 20 minutes before they arrived at the hospital.
Ms Washington told law enforcement that she was engaged in a road rage incident in Lake Highlands, about two miles south of the doughnut shop, describing the other driver in the alleged incident as a man wearing a red shirt, driving a dark-coloured four-door sedan.
“I’m still trying to get myself together right,” she told The Dallas Morning News earlier this week. She posted several Facebook updates mourning her son. “My baby took his last breath in my arms,” she wrote. On Thursday, her profile on the platform was no longer available to view.
An arrest warrant affidavit states that when police spoke to Ms Washington at the hospital, they learned that she had three unrestrained children, aged two, three, and four, in the vehicle when she left the shop.
The affidavit says she told police that she noticed someone following her and that she turned into a neighbourhood in an effort to get away from them. She parked and took her children out of the car when “the aggressive vehicle returned and shot at them”.
The affidavit also says that she allowed police to search her vehicle, saying that there were no weapons inside, but that police found a handgun in the glove compartment “where the children could easily reach it”.
Police learned that she had bought the gun on 4 March as well as another weapon that was later found with the father. There were no child safety seats or other restraints in the vehicle, the affidavit says.
In a following interview at the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, Ms Washington said that she had bought the gun that was found in her vehicle and that she had reached for it twice during the road rage incident but didn’t take it out.
Mr Washington told police after his arrest that he was working during the incident and that he was unaware of where the gun was, adding that his wife should have been taking care of it and confirming that she had bought it.
