Dallas 7-Eleven shooting victim loses eye, crushing chances to join the Navy
Dallas 7-Eleven shooting victim loses eye, crushing chances to join the Navy
18-year-old Gayle Jones lost his left eye in the shooting last month at a 7-Eleven store in Downtown Dallas. He lost his chances to join the Navy, but he also lost his best friend, who died in the attack. It was all a case of mistaken identity.
DALLAS - A young man says his hopes to join the U.S. Navy are over after Dallas police say a gunman mistook him for someone else at a convenience store and shot him in the face.
18-year-old Gayle Jones lost his left eye in the shooting last month at a 7-Eleven store in Downtown Dallas. He also lost a very close friend who died in the attack.
The shooting was a shocking moment of violence at a location that's become a haven for drug deals and crime.
A records request led us to uncover that the 7-Eleven off Ross Avenue in Downtown Dallas is averaging almost two calls to 911 each day.
Gayle Jones and his friends, 17-year-old Omarian Frazier, were inside the 7-Eleven after just wrapping up work at a non-profit when Dallas police say 24-year-old Donald Moore walked in and began shooting.
"First place he shot me was my eye," Jones recalled. "I didn’t see him at all or nothing. But when I fell on the ground, he stood over me and shot me in my knee, he shot me under here."
Jones survived, but Frazier did not.
"He shot him in the head," he said. "He got hit right here, and the rest was body shots."
According to an arrest affidavit, Moore was assaulted by two people outside the 7-Eleven two days before the shooting.
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Police arrested a man they said shot two people, killing one, at a convenience store in Downtown Dallas.
An unidentified witness told a detective that Moore was "seeking to kill those two individuals who beat him up." A detective watched surveillance footage of the assault and says the two attackers look similar to Frazier and Jones but were not them.
Jones lost his left eye. The bullet went out his left ear.
"I didn’t even think my eye was gone," he recalled. "Because when I went to the hospital, I was asking, ‘Mom, I’ve got my eye, right?’ And she told me, she was like, ‘no.’"
Jones’ life will never be the same.
"And I was planning to go to the Navy, but I can’t now," he said. "That was my dream: to go to the Navy. Now, I got a different dream now: to tell my story to everybody, the whole world so they can understand being in the streets as a teenager is not it for everybody."
Jones admits he sometimes hung out at that 7-Eleven, which is a hot spot for crime.
"Drugs. People selling weed. That’s what goes down over there," he said.
A FOX 4 records request to Dallas police uncovered in 2022, there were 402 calls to 911 regarding incidents at that 7-Eleven.
This year as of April 17, there had already been 223 calls to 911.
Jones says he and Frazier were the best of friends. They even greeted each other as so.
"We both gave each other a hug, and we kissed each other on the forehead," he said.
And even though Frazier is gone, Jones believes they still communicate.
"Ten minutes before y’all came, I cried because he was talking to me. I broke down," he said. "He was saying just keep your head up, and I’m happy. I’m happy that you made it and you fought for your life in that hospital."
Jones says he feels fortunate to be alive today.
"It’s a blessing," he said. "By the blessing of God."
FOX 4 reached out to Dallas City Councilman Paul Ridley’s office to see if he would like to comment on crime at the 7-Eleven that’s in his district. We did not get a response when we reached out last week.
FOX 4 reached out to Ridley again this week, but we were told he would like to "politely decline an interview."