5-year-old girl shot and killed on San Francisco Bay Area highway
A 5-year-old girl was killed in a weekend shooting on a highway in the San Francisco Bay Area, authorities said Sunday.
The shooting happened at about 7 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 880 near Milpitas, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Responding officers found a vehicle on southbound I-880 in Fremont, CBS News Bay Area reported. The parents in the car said their daughter was struck by gunfire.
The girl, who the county coroner later identified as Eliyanah Crisostomo, was taken to a local hospital where she died, the station reported.
The entire highway was closed during the investigation, but some lanes reopened after about an hour.
A friend of the Crisostomo family organized a GoFundMe campaign that had received nearly $32,000 of its $75,000 goal on Monday, about 24 hours after it first launched, CBS News Bay Area reported.
In the campaign's description, the organizer, Jeff McGrew, described Crisostomo as "a fun-loving little girl who loved life, had a giving heart, close with her three siblings, especially her brother who were 11 months apart."
"Both were so excited for Easter before the family was torn to pieces by this tragic event," McGrew wrote. He said Crisostomo would have turned six on April 21.
According to the GoFundMe page, Crisostomo died within 30 seconds after being struck by gunfire. McGrew said the child and her family were driving to an Outback restaurant in Milpitas for a birthday dinner when the shooting occurred on Saturday.
Authorities were also investigating a separate shooting around 6:30 p.m. Saturday in nearby Fremont. Three suspects were later arrested after a chase in connection with the Fremont shooting, and a gun was recovered, according to the Santa Cruz Police Department.
"The vehicle did not yield, and a pursuit was initiated," Santa Cruz police said in a statement. "During the pursuit on Hwy 17, officers observed the vehicle's occupants discarding a firearm from the car. The suspect driver stopped a short distance later."
Investigators were trying to determine if the two shootings were connected.
