Family remembers 18-year-old fatally shot by friend showing off guns on livestream in Garland
GARLAND, Texas - A 16-year-old girl is facing manslaughter charges after being seen on a livestream with two guns. One of those weapons fired, hitting the 18-year-old victim, who later died from her injuries.
Police and family members of the victim have said they don’t know where the guns came from or who they belong to.
They’re labeling this an accidental shooting, which took the life of 18-year-old Princess Omobogie.
"She was just a beautiful person," the victim’s mother, Angel Onchweri, said.
"And she loved TikTok. She wanted to be TikTok famous," the victim’s cousin, Shawn Yarbrough, said.
Garland police said Omobogie was shot while using a cell phone to livestream her friend, who was displaying two handguns, back on July 5.
One gun discharged, hitting Omobogie, who died two days later.
"There’s too many of our kids being lost to gun violence, right?" Yarbrough added.
The fatal shooting happened at an apartment complex off Apollo Road.
A neighbor said the apartment is rented by parents of one of the kids Omobogie was with.
"Well, I walked outside. It sounded as if it was a firecracker," Latoya Wilson recalled. "And I saw kids running out the apartment. I asked were they OK. The first time they didn’t say anything, so I yelled out the window again asking were they OK, just in case I needed to come and help. And one of the kids said, yes, we’re good."
But once police arrived, that’s when the neighbor noticed a bullet hole.
"You can literally look out the window and see it," Wilson said.
"What if this happened to your family? What would you have told people?" the victim’s sister, Giavonna Johnson, said.
RELATED: 16-year-old fatally shot friend while showing off guns on livestream, Garland PD says
Police charged a 16-year-old with manslaughter. They said they don’t know who the guns belong to or how they ended up in the hands of a minor.
"It’s heartbreaking, no matter how it happened," Yarbrough said.
Omobogie’s mother said she usually kept her daughter close to home, but she recently eased up after the teen graduated from South Garland High School.
"I’m not going to worry. The summer is going to pass, and when August comes, she’s going to go off to school," Onchweri said of her thinking.
Looking back, she recalled the day her daughter, the fifth of six kids, was born, and how her father picked her name.
"Because I was just panicking, you know, right after she was born. I’m like, what are we going to name her? And then he said Princess," Onchweri said.
A name they said she lived.
"[If] you told her she wasn’t a princess, you were in for an argument," Yarbrough said.
"She was definitely, like, my person. She was my best friend," the victim’s sister, Gabriel Howard, said.
Her family said they’d give anything to see her again, even if just a video call.
"She’d be like, ‘Why do you call me if you’re just going to hold the phone?’ I’m just like, ‘I just want to see your face,’" Howard said.
But right now, all they can do is share memories and a message.
"But she loved children. She was a protector," Yarbrough said. "And what I want to say to children is guns are not for play. Guns are not for play."
Police have not named the 16-year-old suspect because she is a minor.
Garland PD said she is a resident of the city of Dallas, and the two girls attended different high schools.