Victim's family, police look for answers after murder charge dismissed in Dallas shooting
Murder charge dismissed in Dallas shooting
A man arrested two years ago for a drive-by shooting that killed a young mother and injured four others is no longer charged with the murder. Now, the woman's family and Dallas police are looking for answers.
DALLAS - A man arrested two years ago for a shooting that killed a woman and injured four others is no longer charged with the murder.
Court records show the evidence in the drive-by shooting was not strong enough.
Fair Park drive-by shooting
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Arrest made in Dallas drive-by that killed mother of 2
24-year-old Shaniah Jones was killed in a drive-by shooting at a block party near Fair Park in the early morning hours of July 16.
The backstory:
Shaniah Jones, 24, was shot and killed in the shooting in the early morning hours of July 16, 2023.
Jones was at a block party near Fair Park when she was shot. Four other people were also injured.
There is no indication that Jones was the target of the shooting.
Court records say there were multiple shooters that night.
A month after the shooting, 23-year-old Laquest Sirls was charged with murder after he was indicted by a grand jury.
Detectives mostly based the arrest warrant off Sirls fitting the description of someone who abandoned the suspect's vehicle at a later time, connections to gang members seen on video in the vehicle at a McDonald's drive-thru before the shooting and Sirl's cell phone data pinging at the shooting scene and areas where the vehicle was driven.
Murder case dismissed
What we know:
Prosecutors filed a successful motion to dismiss the case against Sirls last week.
Defense attorneys claimed that Sirls left his phone in the car and someone else was driving the vehicle on the night of the shooting.
The motion to dismiss says "the cell phone that would put the defendent at the scene was used by multiple people." It went on to say that "we cannot determine the defendant was the user of the cell phone during the offense."
The motion also said that the driver and occupants of the vehicle were not discernible at the time of the shooting.
Russell Wilson, an attorney and former prosecutor who is not connected to the case, went over the court documents.
He says an outright dismissal is rare.
"Usually, when a case is indicted, if it's contested, it usually proceeds to trial," said Wilson. "The state was relying primarily on technology and while that information could be helpful, there are limitations."
What's next:
The Dallas Police Department is refusing to comment on the dismissal or if it has additional suspects.
They say the investigation is ongoing.
Sirls has not been ruled out to have had some sort of involvement. When Sirls' murder charge was dismissed, he pleaded guilty to a probation violation stemming from an aggravated robbery in 2020 and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Family members looking for answers
What they're saying:
The family of Shaniah Jones is frustrated with the Dallas Police Department.
"I believe they dropped the ball because they had a lot of good leads. Even I went up there and gave them leads, videos, conversations," said Shatammini Jones, Shaniah's mother.
Jones' family members are still heartbroken for her two children, a four-year-old boy and two-year-old girl.
"I basically told him she’s in heaven and she’s always looking down on them — and she loved them," said Jones.
The Source: Information in this article comes from Dallas Police, Dallas County court records, attorney Russell Wilson and the Jones family.