Dallas Woman Fatally Shot Outside Of PetSmart
Tuesday afternoon, 41-year-old Cecilia Simpson was shot outside of a PetSmart in the 3500 block of West Wheatland in southeast Oak Cliff. The suspect is 22-year-old Keona Zachyua Hampton. The altercation began when Hampton didn’t say thank you to Simpson for holding the door for her. The argument turned physical and escalated to Simpson being shot multiple times by Hampton in the PetSmart parking lot. Simpson was taken to the hospital, where she later died due to her wounds.
Simpson was with her 20-year-old daughter at five and below in the same shopping center as PetSmart, as they were walking out, Simpson was holding the door for Hampton, and became upset when she didn’t say thank you. That’s when the initial arguing began.
Simpson and her daughter got in their car and drove to PetSmart, and Hampton also began heading to PetSmart on foot.
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When Simpson and her daughter went into the store, they told employees that they were being followed by Hampton. When Hampton made it to PetSmart, she began arguing with Simpson’s 20-year-old daughter. After the argument, Hampton left the store only to return a few minutes later.
When Hampton came back to the store, the two parties started arguing again when employees asked them to leave. While Simpson and her daughter were getting into their vehicles, it’s alleged that Hampton threw a bottle at their car, resulting in a continuous argument between the two. This is when things turned physical, and the two ladies began fighting. The daughter told the police that her mom was fighting to get Hampton to leave them alone. Allegedly, when the daughter stepped away from the fight, that’s when Hampton pulled out her black and silver handgun and fired at Simpson 3 times, causing her to fall to the ground.
Surveillance video shows Hampton driving away from the scene in a black Ford Five Hundred. Dallas police went to the address registered to the vehicle and saw Hampton on the balcony of an apartment, still wearing the same clothes matching the person in the surveillance video.
In addition to the surveillance videos, witnesses also shared their video footage with the police showing what happened, as well as Hampton leaving the scene.
Around 7:45 that evening, Dallas police conducted a traffic stop on the black Ford Five Hundred Hampton was driving. She was then taken to police headquarters to be interviewed, where she confirmed she was in an argument with Simpson and her daughter, that she went into PetSmart twice to continue arguing, that she threw a bottle at Simpson’s car as they were trying to leave, and that she began to fight her. Hampton says she pulled out her gun when witnesses started to get involved. She told the police she was just trying to get Simpson away from her.
According to Fox 4, a 27-year-old ER nurse who was walking out of the PetSmart store heard the two women arguing in the parking lot, “The shooter was saying, ‘Come outside. Let’s handle this outside. Let’s fight outside.’ And the mom and daughter were just telling her to, like, go away.” “The mother and daughter tried to get in the car to de-escalate the situation, but the lady wasn’t having it. They started to fight, and that’s when the lady pulled out her gun and shot her,” she says. She said she ran over to Simpson after the shooting, trying to help, and began performing CPR before paramedics arrived. The 27-year-old ER nurse also says, “The daughter was next to the mom the whole time. It’s hard, you know, because the screaming of a child for her mother is never easy and it’s never going to leave my head,” she said. “I’ve been trying not to cry, but just like, you know, being in high school, my mom was such an important person in my life, and she’s the reason I became a nurse. My whole family is.”
“Honestly, if I could just hug that daughter. I just want her to know I did everything I could. Those other people did everything they could,”
Hampton has been booked into the Dallas County jail with no bond currently set.
Dallas Woman Fatally Shot Outside Of PetSmart was originally published on thebeatdfw.com
