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Arlene Alvarez: Family seeks justice as Texas robbery victim accidentally guns down girl, 9

Arlene was accidentally shot when Tony Earls opened fire at an attacker who had robbed him and his wife at gunpoint at a bank’s ATM drive-thru

HOUSTON, TEXAS: A nine-year-old girl from Texas died after being accidentally shot by a victim of robbery, who opened fire at the suspect. Arlene Alvarez, a fourth-grader at De Zavala Elementary, was shot in the head on Monday, February 14, when 41-year-old Tony Earls opened fire at an attacker who had robbed him and his wife at gunpoint at a bank’s ATM drive-thru and fled, Houston police said. 

“Earls first shot at the robbery suspect, who was fleeing on foot, and then at a pickup truck he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into,” police said in a statement. A family of five was inside the same truck, with Arlene sitting in the backseat. She was rushed to a hospital after being struck and put on life support, but eventually succumbed to her injuries. Earls has been charged with aggravated assault – serious bodily injury in the 263rd State District Court.

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"HPD patrol officers responded to a shooting call at the above address. Upon arrival, they found the juvenile victim unresponsive in her parent’s disabled vehicle," the police statement reads. "Further investigation determined Earls was with his wife at a bank ATM drive-thru at the above address when an unknown male robbed them. Earls first shot at the robbery suspect, who was fleeing on foot, and then at a pickup truck he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into. The vehicle’s occupants, a family of five, were not involved in the robbery. The juvenile victim, a rear-seat passenger, was struck during the shooting. Earls was subsequently arrested and charged in this incident. The unknown robbery suspect remains at large." Police have urged anyone with information in either this case or the robbery to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers.

Arlene's family attorney, Rick Ramos, said that Earls could not have been acting in self-defense. "Once you take your gun and you run off and you have your back turned to the individual you robbed, that individual is no longer an immediate threat or fear of imminent safety," Ramos said. "At that point in time, you lose your right to self-defense because the threat is gone."

Armando Alvarez, Arlene's father, was sitting in the back seat with his daughter, watching a movie, when she was shot. “Now he wants to say it’s self-defense. It’s not self-defense,” Armando said. “You don’t self-defense when a person is running already two blocks away from you and you’re shooting at that person and then you decide to shoot at a truck just because he’s passing by at a public street. Now my daughter’s gone. I mean c’mon.”

"It just hurts me so much, it's gonna hurt me forever, but I just want justice for my baby girl," Gwen, Arlene's mother, said. "And people need to stop having road rage, they need to stop having all this anger towards them and shooting like crazy because there's a lot of innocent little babies." "I know Arlene. She's fighting right now for justice, for all these kids getting killed. Innocent adults, too, I mean everybody in general," she added. "My daughter had a connection with everybody. Maybe this had to happen to my daughter so the word could be out."