CLEVELAND -- A pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed along with three other people in a shooting at a Cleveland home that also injured the pregnant woman's 9-year-old daughter but left the woman's toddler son unharmed, police said Saturday.
Sherita Johnson was 28 weeks pregnant when she was shot outside her home around 7:30 p.m. Friday, police said. A 17-year-old girl and two men, ages 19 and 60, were also killed, but the Cuyahoga County medical examiner didn't immediately release their identities and authorities didn't provide information about the victims' relationships.
"Only an animal would do something like this to another human being," Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said Saturday.
Police had not determined a motive or identified a suspect, and Williams asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact authorities.
"There's somebody out there who knows a lot more than we know and we need that information," Williams said. "We don't want to speculate on why this happened."
The preliminary investigation showed that Johnson, 41, arrived home with her children and allowed her daughter to go inside for clothes, according to police.
While inside the house, the girl found one or some of the people who had been shot. A male armed with a handgun then ran toward the girl and fired, grazing her chest, police said.
Investigators said the gunman, described as wearing a mask, ran by the 9-year-old into the driveway and shot Johnson in her vehicle. Johnson's 2-year-old son, who wasn't harmed, was in the back seat.
Johnson and her daughter were taken to a hospital, where Johnson was pronounced dead on arrival. Her unborn child also died.
The 9-year-old was treated and released from the hospital to family, along with her brother, police said.
