MEMPHIS, Tenn. — WREG is looking at the security of the North Memphis apartment complex where a little girl was shot earlier this week.
10-year-old Vynnitra Dobbs was rushed to the hospital after she was shot in the head Monday night. A stray bullet hit her in her living room at the Goodwill Village Apartments.
“The police came fast enough it’s just that you know accidents happen like this and it moves so fast,” said Benesha McCain.
Global Ministries Foundation, the owners of the apartment complex, said there is private security at the complex every night.
McCain believes more can be done.
“I think we should tie down our security because it’s probably people over here that don’t belong,” she said.
The father of the 10-year-old told WREG he doesn’t think the person who pulled the trigger lives in the complex. Police have not said if that’s the case.
“It just makes me so sick. Something like this should never happen,” said Janine Heiner Buchanan
Heiner Buchanan is the Managing Director at Safeways, a non-profit that helps apartment complexes make safety improvements through environmental design. She monitors crime at complexes through Memphis, including Goodwill Village.
“In between 2015 and 2016 we saw a 6.4 percent increase in offenses that we track at that property,” she explained.
Hopefully that can change.
A spokesperson with Global Ministries said a new company, the Millennia Company, plans to acquire Goodwill Villages in the fall. Millennia’s property management company is scheduled to take Goodwill over in two weeks. Then they will do a security plan assessment, including consideration of additional lighting, limiting site access, neighborhood watch and other security measures.
So far, police have not made any arrests in the shooting case.