Man Arrested in Shooting of Two Texas Cheerleaders After One Mistakenly Got Into the Wrong Car

A man has been arrested after two Texas cheerleaders were shot, one critically, after one of them mistakenly got into the wrong car, according to police and the owner of the gym where they trained.

Officers in Elgin, about 25 miles northeast of Austin, responded to reports of shots fired outside an H-E-B supermarket around 12:15 a.m. local time (1:15 a.m. ET) Tuesday, the Elgin Police Department said in a news release.

“Information suggests that an altercation occurred in the parking lot of H-E-B, and multiple shots were fired into a vehicle,” police said. Two of the car’s occupants were struck by gunfire, with one victim sustaining serious injuries and transported by helicopter to a hospital, where they were listed in critical condition, police said.

The suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, has been charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.

Pedro Tello Rodriguez

Lynn Shearer, owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer Co., told NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin that the two people shot were cheerleaders who were on their way home from practice.

Shearer said the cheerleaders typically carpooled from the Austin area to her gym. On Monday night, she said at least four cheerleaders were on their way back to the Austin area and had to stop at an H-E-B, where some of the members had parked their cars.

One of the girls accidentally tried to get into the wrong car, Shearer said. That’s when, she said, a “guy got out and they saw that he had a gun. And so they tried to speed off and he shot his gun, like five times or so into the car.” Woodlands Elite did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment. {snip}

According to ABC News, Heather Roth, a cheerleader with the Woodlands Elite, said in an Instagram Live post that she was the one who got out of her friend’s car and opened the door of another vehicle she thought was her own, only to notice a man was in the passenger seat. She said she got out of the car and back into her friend’s vehicle, the report said.

Roth reportedly said the man approached their vehicle and she rolled down a window to apologize. That’s when the man started shooting {snip}

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Shearer identified the cheerleader who was critically injured in the shooting as Payton Washington, of the Round Rock Independent School District.

Payton Washington and Heather Roth

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