ATHENS, Ga. — Editor's note: The video above is from a previous report.
A 5-year-old girl will lose her eye after she was shot by a stray bullet while warming up for dance class in Athens, her mother told 11Alive Tuesday.
Ne’vaeh Brown was at dance practice along North Avenue when a shootout broke out in a nearby parking lot on the evening of April 26.
Gunshots erupted in the parking lot– sending a stray bullet through the glass front, hitting 5-year-old Ne'vaeh Brown in the eye and a 14-year-old, later identified as Navaeh Hogue, in the arm. Hogue was trying to protect Brown when she was shot in the arm.
"It was traumatic. To see the injury, the blood, to see everything I didn't know what to do or what to think. I didn't know where the bullet was at, or if it was still in her eye," her mother, Brittanie Wright previously said.
Wright said her daughter will have surgery next week to have her eye removed. She added that this will be her third surgery since she was shot.
Brown will then be fit for a prosthetic eye in the next coming weeks. She will now have to learn a new way of life with one eye.
RELATED: Athens teen shot trying to protect 5-year-old after shootout in parking lot during dance practice
Her mother said when she was shot the bullet was just inches away from hitting Brown's brain. She added that doctors told her that the bullet split her eyeball and then grazed the bridge of her nose.
Wright said she can't seem to wrap her mind around why people would be shooting while kids are around.
"Y'all are shooting with innocent people around in broad daylight. Y'all are outside arguing, you pull a gun out and start shooting at each other. Neither one of y'all got hit, you just shooting. Y'all seen a lot of kids pulling up, getting out and going into the building. They had no cares. That's selfish and something needs to be done," Wright explained.
Officials arrested 38-year-old Rasheed Scott in Gwinnett County the next day for his involvement in the shooting. As of Tuesday, Athens Clarke County Police said no other arrests have been made at this time.
Athens Police are still investigating the incident and are looking for other people who may be involved.
