By Juli McShay
Forward Times
https://www.forwardtimes.com/
Three children were killed in separate shootings within one week. Two more survived gunfire in places their families had every reason to believe were safe.
A mother drove her children home from their grandmother’s house. A student left school for the day. Another was heading to class on homecoming morning. A family waited in a parking lot to pick up a relative from work.
There is nothing unusual about any of those moments. That is what makes the gunfire that interrupted them so hard to accept.
Since Saturday, Sept. 19, three children have been killed in separate shootings across the Houston area: 5-year-old Zah’Layah Walton, 15-year-old Royce Witchet and 17-year-old LePaul Warren Jr. Other children were in cars when shots were fired. A 12-year-old boy was wounded while sitting with his family in their minivan. These were separate incidents with different circumstances. Together, they force us to ask how much danger we are allowing children to absorb just to move through an ordinary day.
Zah’Layah was riding with her mother, Monica Hicks, and four siblings on Grant Road in northwest Harris County late Sept. 19 when someone fired into their vehicle. Hicks reached their apartment complex before realizing her daughter had been shot. Zah’Layah died at the hospital. Two of her siblings were injured by shattered glass.
Jeremy Porter, 47, has been charged with capital murder. Prosecutors say he fired at the family’s car while believing, incorrectly, that someone had shot at him. That allegation will be tested in court. For Zah’Layah’s family, no court proceeding can give back the little girl who was simply riding home.
The following evening, police investigated another apparent road-rage shooting that began near Loop 610 and Ella Boulevard and ended near San Felipe. Vehicles collided, people were shot, and a 7-year-old riding in one of the vehicles was physically unharmed. I am thankful that child survived. I also cannot call a child unharmed in every sense after gunfire erupts around them.
On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Royce Witchet was shot after dismissal near Westfield High School and the Spring ISD administration building. He was 15. A 14-year-old student was taken into custody and charged in juvenile court in connection with his death. Spring ISD increased its law enforcement presence and offered counseling to students and staff.
Royce was a son and a brother, not simply the subject of a school safety discussion. His mother, Rhonda Churchwell, remembered a funny, loving young man who cared for his siblings and enjoyed sports and music.
Three days later, Westbury High School senior LePaul Warren Jr. was shot near campus before the school day began. LePaul, 17, played football and basketball. It was homecoming weekend, and he never made it to class. The school canceled its homecoming activities and made counseling available. Travoris Hines, also 17, has been charged with murder. Investigators have not established a public motive.
Both shootings happened near schools, in the spaces students cross as they arrive or leave. That distinction matters when we talk about campus security. A building can have procedures, officers and locked doors, but children still travel sidewalks, parking areas and streets. We need to ask what protection and support look like across that whole journey, and what warning signs can be addressed before someone reaches for a gun.
On Friday night, a 12-year-old boy was sitting in a parked minivan with his parents and siblings near Barker Cypress Road. They were waiting to pick up a relative from work. According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, someone in a sedan fired toward a truck moving through the parking lot, and the family’s minivan was caught between the vehicles. The boy was struck near his shoulder and was reported in stable condition the next morning.
His family was not part of the dispute investigators described. They were waiting together. I keep returning to that fact because a child was shot while sitting beside his parents and siblings, caught in gunfire meant for someone else.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has said that responding to this violence takes more than law enforcement. I agree, but “all of us” has to mean something concrete. It means adults refusing to turn a roadway confrontation into a fight. It means taking threats and disputes among young people seriously before they escalate. It means schools, families and public officials looking closely at the places where students gather and travel, while making sure grieving classmates have support after the police leave.
We should not flatten these children into a count or pretend that every shooting has the same cause. Zah’Layah, Royce and LePaul were children with families who loved them and lives that should have had time to unfold. The children who survived have their own experiences to carry. Remembering them means asking Harris County’s leaders what they will do about gunfire on our roads, threats among young people and the spaces students cross on their way to and from school. Their families deserve answers that last longer than this week’s headlines.
Juli McShay is a government professor at San Jacinto College specializing in constitutional law, civics and voting rights. She is the founder of the Houston Civics & Leadership Campaign School, host of the Pretty Petty Politics podcast and a political contributor for Forward Times.
