A 27-year-old Georgia woman was charged with the murder of a pregnant woman who was fatally shot while she was trying to move her child away from a fight, police said Thursday.
Kiresa Cooper, an Athens-Clarke County resident, is facing one count felony murder and one count of aggravated assault in the incident that left 24-year-old Auriel Callaway, who was four months pregnant, dead, according to a statement from the county police department.
Cooper was taken into custody on Wednesday evening, police said.
Police called Callaway “an innocent bystander.”
She was struck as she was trying to bring her child, believed to be 2 or 3 years old, to safety after a fight broke out and gunfire soon erupted, according to police.
When officers arrived at the scene, they tried performing life-saving procedures on Callaway before she was rushed to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
Her unborn child also did not survive the shooting. Her toddler was not injured.
According to her sister, Standria Walker, Callaway had “a heart of gold” and wasn’t involved in the fight.
“She said, ‘I’m fixing to go, y’all. I’m taking my baby in the house,’” Walker told ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV.
“She got hit with her son in her arms and she’s pregnant,” Walker told WSB-TV. “That’s my only sister. They took our baby away from us.”
Police Chief Cleveland Spruill called the shooting a “reckless act of violence [that] took the life of a young mother in her prime as well as her unborn child.”
It was not immediately clear if Cooper had obtained an attorney. She was booked at the Athens-Clarke County Jail.
