Teen girl shot, protects baby nephew in South LA

SOUTH LOS ANGELES -- A teenage girl, visiting from out of town, got caught up in gun violence in South Los Angeles. She is a lucky survivor after being shot Wednesday night, at the same time protecting a baby who was with her.

De Je Brewer, 14, will have a scar where doctors removed a bullet from her arm and where another bullet pierced her skin. She was in the back seat of a Ford Explorer with her 10-month-old nephew when shots were fired.

"I didn't know what to do, and then I felt something hit my arm. I touched it and it was blood," said Brewer. "So I tried to cover the baby, and I laid over him."

Brewer shielded the baby from the gunfire and was the only person struck inside the SUV.

"When it hit me, I didn't feel nothing because I was shocked. But like afterward, it started hurting," said Brewer.

The shooting happened on West 59th Place. Brewer and her siblings live in Twentynine Palms, but they went to South L.A. for a relative's funeral. She and her cousins were parked in the driveway for just five minutes, waiting for her sister to come out of the house, when the suspects drove by.

"I think it was just something random, and it didn't make a difference who it was. They just wanted to inflict pain on someone," said Donna Brooks, Brewer's aunt.

Brooks says the suspects pulled up behind the Explorer in a dark green Pontiac with silver rims and started shooting. The family feels blessed no one was killed and Brewer's wounds will heal. They just wish there was an end in sight to senseless violence.

"Enough is enough. Any time a life doesn't matter, we have a problem," said Brooks.

Police said they have no suspect information. They're asking anyone who knows something about the shooting to call the LAPD's 77th Division.