Mother, doctors still hopeful despite possibility of 11-year-old being paralyzed following shooting

HARRIS COUNTY – A man has been arrested and charged in connection to a drive-by shooting that left a mother and her 11-year-old son wounded inside their north Harris County home early Sunday, HCSO said.

Keandre Jackson, 19, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. On Monday, his bond was set at $500,000-- $250,000 for each charge.

Jackson’s bond conditions are set to GPS monitoring, and he is ordered to have no drugs and alcohol or no contact with the victims or the people who helped commit the crime. Jackson can’t have access to any deadly weapons, a judge said.

Sheriff Gonzalez said deputies with Harris County Pct. 4 Constable’s Office responded to the shooting, which happened in the 5000 block of Roth Forest Lane at around midnight.

In a tweet, Gonzalez said the 11-year-old boy was involved in an argument with a group of teenagers at a separate home. He left that home and was reportedly followed by the group, instigating a fight. He added that Jackson was related to one of the children involved in the argument.

In court, it was revealed that Jackson’s middle school-aged cousin had an argument with the victim’s older brother over what is believed to be a girl. Jackson drove up to the home where both Mehki, his sister, and his mother Jasmine Winters were in bed and fired four shots, court documents said.

Winters is the mother of a 14-year-old boy, 11-year-old Mehki, and a 6-year-old girl, who she said has autism and is non-verbal.

Winters said she, Mehki, and her daughter were in the bed laughing when they heard popping noises that they thought were fireworks. Mehki tried to duck before he was hit in the neck, she said. The bullet is lodged in his shoulder and doctors have decided not to remove it.

Winters has been released from the hospital after she was hit in her pelvic area and rushed to an area hospital. Mehki was life-flighted to Texas Children’s Hospital in critical condition, where doctors said he may now be paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury from the bullet. Doctors said there is hope since he can still wiggle his toes.

Neighbor Melanie Jennever told KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun that she’s in disbelief after learning her neighbors were shot.

“This is just a shock to me because I’ve never had to deal with any of this and I know they’re really great people,” she said.

Jennever said her daughters go to Northampton Elementary.

Klein ISD sent a message to district families, “As a part of our support for our school, please be assured that in addition to extra Klein ISD police officers around our campus, we will also have additional staff from our District crisis counseling team on campus for students and staff who have been impacted and need such support.”

Northampton Elementary School sent the following message out to families after the incident:

“As you may know, over the weekend one of our students sustained serious injuries during an incident in the community.

We know that many in our Northampton Family may wish to aid the student and his family. At this time, we are respecting the family’s privacy by not sharing more details. If there is something we can do to assist the family as a community, we will communicate that information to you at a later time.

As a part of our support for our school, please be assured that in addition to extra Klein ISD police officers around our campus, we will also have additional staff from our District crisis counseling team on campus for students and staff who have been impacted and need such support.

As always, we appreciate our community and the many ways we look after one another.”

Anyone with information on this case is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS or the HCSO Violent Crimes Unit at 713-274-9100.