January 11, 2022January 11, 2022114

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A community in Augusta, Georgia is mourning the loss of an 8-year-old girl who was fatally shot as she petted horses outside her home on Saturday.

Arbrie Leigh Anthony, an honor-roll student at Jenkins-White Elementary School, was outside petting horses with other kids from the neighborhood when police say two suspects drove by and fired as many as 10 shots outside her apartment building. One of the bullets struck Arbrie in the head.

Arbrie’s father immediately rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. She was pronounced dead at the hospital on Saturday. 

“It was just a normal Saturday, a normal day. She loved to play outside,” Arbrie’s aunt, Jamila McDaniel, told The Augusta Chronicle. “I’m just not understanding why someone would do something like that.”

“My brother will never be the same,” she said of Arbrie’s father. “What that person stole from him, from us, it’s so unimaginable the pain and hurt. He took something so precious from us for something so senseless.”

Authorities in Augusta have launched a manhunt for at least two suspects they say were driving a red or orange newer-model Jeep Compass Trailhawk. On Monday, Sheriff Richard Roundtree released photos of the vehicle suspected to have been involved in the shooting.

“We are following up on every lead that comes in, but I cannot and will not accept the fact that no one knows who these suspects are,” Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree told reporters Monday. “There are individuals in this community that knew why they were there, knew what they were there for and knew who they were after, but yet they’ve failed to come forward with this information.”

Anyone with information is urged to call Investigator Lucas Heise or any violent crimes investigator with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office at 706-821-1026 or 706-821-1080.

Friends of the family have set up a GoFundMe page to help support them during this tragic time.