7-year-old girl dies after uncle shoots her during filming of music video, police say

GASTONIA, N.C. — A Charlotte man is facing a murder charge after his 7-year-old niece, whom police said he shot in the head last week, has died.

According to arrest warrants, Gabrielle Jones, who was shot on April 13, did not survive. It is unclear when she died.

Police said Jeremy Quintrel Lewis shot his niece in the head just after 7:15 p.m. at a home on Ware Avenue in Gastonia. She was flown to the hospital with serious injuries after her uncle opened fire inside her home, officials confirmed.

Channel 9 learned that a music video was being filmed inside the home when the shooting happened.

According to court documents, Lewis was handed a gun and when he fired the weapon, a bullet went through a wall and hit his niece.

Witnesses told police that there were both real and fake guns being used for the video.

Documents state that after the shooting, Lewis went to the hospital with his niece and her father and that’s where police took him into custody.

Lewis, of Charlotte, was originally arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, discharging a weapon into occupied property causing serious bodily harm and possession of a firearm by a felon.

On Tuesday, those charges had been upgraded to second-degree murder. Lewis is being held without bond.

Channel 9 spoke with several neighbors who are in disbelief over what happened calling it a tragedy for the family.

“Even though it was probably an accident at the same time an innocent baby got killed,” one neighbor said. “So somebody has got to be held accountable.”

Police said a gun was found inside the home.

During his court appearance last week, prosecutors said Lewis’s niece was shot in the head and that the shooting happened inside the home.

The girl was taken to CaroMont Regional Medical Center before being flown to Atrium Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte.

Channel 9 crews on the scene could see the glass on the front door of the house had been shattered and what appeared to be a bullet hole on the wall.

Witnesses told Channel 9 that the glass wasn’t from the gunfire but from someone jumping through the door while holding the child.

“We saw somebody busting through the screen glass like on a movie and carrying a kid that looked lifeless. Just a terrible thing,” the witness said.

Neighbor Eugene Logan told Channel 9 he remembers seeing the girl playing outside her home.

“I would come home, see her out there in the yard riding a bicycle, playing around -- doing little kid stuff,” Logan said.

The organization Mothers of Murdered Offspring is having a vigil for Gabrielle on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Camp Greene Park in Charlotte.

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