Inset: Shanika Battle (Dallas County Jail). Background: The residential area near where Battle is alleged to have shot and killed her adult daughter in Dallas, Tex. (Google Maps).
A Texas woman is behind bars after shooting and killing her daughter during an argument about who drank whose alcoholic beverage, law enforcement in the Lone Star State says.
Shanika Battle, 49, stands accused of one count of murder, according to Dallas County court records reviewed by Law&Crime.
The underlying incident occurred on Monday at a residence on Green Cove Lane in southwest Dallas and took the life of 28-year-old Tabatha Jones, according to the Dallas Police Department.
A few minutes before 4 p.m. that day, officers arrived in response to reports of a shooting. An initial police report described the victim and alleged assailant as “known to one another.”
The victim herself is said to have called 911 and told dispatch that her own mother shot her in the side, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Dallas-based Fox affiliate KDFW and ABC affiliate WFAA.
Authorities arrived within minutes due to already being on a call roughly a block away from the scene of the crime, police said. Responding officers found Jones on her bed in her room suffering from a gunshot wound, according to the affidavit.
The younger woman was taken to a nearby hospital where she eventually succumbed to her injuries, according to law enforcement.
Both women were in the residence — and were the only people there — when police arrived, the affidavit says. After obtaining a search warrant, investigators found a pistol in the living room near the older woman”s purse along with a .380-caliber fired cartridge casing in the hallway outside the victim’s bedroom, police said.
In a subsequent interview, Battle allegedly told investigators her daughter was upset because she had taken her daughter’s alcohol.
The mother went on to say Jones then began “going into rooms that aren’t hers,” the affidavit says. This purported behavior led to an argument between mother and daughter, police said.
There is some dispute over whether the argument ever became physical. However, the defendant allegedly did admit to owning the gun found at the residence, police said. Battle also allegedly said she removed the gun from her purse in an effort to “scare” her daughter — but was adamant she did not shoot her, according to the affidavit.
The defendant is being detained in the Dallas County Jail with no bond.
