Hopewell mother needs answers after 8-year-old daughter killed days before birthday

HOPEWELL, Va. (WWBT) - A Hopewell mother is looking for answers after her 8-year-old daughter was gunned down Friday afternoon while playing outside with her friends.

“Y’all are killing kids out here. I never thought it would be my kids, though,” Brionna Taylor said.

Taylor said she barely has energy left to stand after she learned her daughter P’Aris was killed in a drive-by shooting just after 2 p.m. Friday near the 2300 block of Freeman St.

“They took something away from me,” Taylor said. “I don’t look at my kids as favorites or none of that, but she was like me.”

P’Aris’s mom said her daughter loved to make Tik Tok videos and ride her bike outside with her friends.

Chief of Hopewell Police, AJ Starke, said that’s what the 8-year-old was doing when the incident occurred.

“While they were playing, there was a silver in color vehicle that came down Freeman Street,” Starke said. “The vehicle slowed down, and we’re told that one shot was fired from that vehicle, and that was the shot that struck this little girl and took her life.”

Taylor said she could tell her daughter was scared and was trying to run away.

“Her bike was on the kickstand, so apparently y’all was, y’all frightened her when y’all got there because she was trying to run home. She was on the side of the house,” Taylor said.

P’Aris was just four days away from turning nine-year-old, and sadly now police said she is the ninth homicide victim in the city of Hopewell this year.

While Taylor tries to make sense of what happened, she just wants whoever did this to come forward before someone else’s life is taken too.

“We already know this is a chain reaction event, so make it known,” Taylor said.

Police ask if you know anything to call Crime Solvers at (804) 541-2202.

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