6-Year-Old Girl Shot While Family Waits at Texas McDonald’s Drive-Thru

A 6-year-old Texas girl was shot as her family was waiting at a McDonald’s drive-thru, according to reports.

Claire Tidwell was shot in the leg by a security guard’s stray bullet in Houston, KTRK reported. The guard opened fire on a theft suspect at a T-Mobile store near the McDonald’s.

“He saw the theft happening in progress. He pulled his weapon and actually shot the suspect,” said Officer Anthony Le told KTRK.

The guard, 28-year-old Christopher Bradley, is being held in police custody over the shooting. He fired 10 shots in all, and it’s likely that he will face charges, the report said.

“She’s OK. She’s stable,” said her father, Danny Tidwell, to the news outlet.

He added: “There was gunshots. We were sitting in the car, ordering food. All of a sudden, gunshots started going off everywhere. It was so loud that we knew it was close. It was so close that we ducked in the seat, because we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. As the shots were going off, my daughter said, ‘Daddy, I’m hurt.’ I turned around and there was blood everywhere. I knew she was shot, so I just left.”

“That is the bravest 6-year-old I have ever met in my life,” Jessica Montanez, her aunt, told the station. “I’m grateful that she’s alive, first of all, that’s most important. Second of all, it’s more so how the situation happened, it could have been a lot worse.”

According to a GoFundMe set up for the girl, her father wrote: “When she saw I was about to lose it as I struggled to stop the bleeding, she tried to reassure me: ‘Daddy, I’m OK. I’m going to be fine.’ Claire has shown more courage and strength than any six-year-old you could imagine.”

He added that Claire is now stable, but her road to recovery “is long and expensive.”