Woman and Her Dog Shot Dead While Helping Friend Leave Relationship

A woman and her dog have been fatally shot while she tried to help her friend leave an alleged abusive relationship, according to Texas police.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) was alerted to reports that a woman had sustained multiple gunshot wounds at 2323 E. Mossy Oaks Road in Spring, around 30 miles north of downtown Houston, on Saturday, September 9.

A female at the location said that her friend had been shot and when deputies arrived at the address, they discovered the victim, named as 28-year-old Shantavia Reddick, dead from gunshot wounds.

Investigators determined that Reddick had come to the address to assist a female friend who was involved in an ongoing domestic disturbance. Reddick had come to the location with her dog where she was shot.

The gunman has been identified as 28-year-old Dimitri Humphrey. He shot both Reddick and her dog but did not shoot his girlfriend, with whom he was having the altercation. Humphrey then fled the location in a white Jeep Wrangler bearing Texas license plate TFN-4278.

In social media posts, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said: "A friend, who arrived to assist a friend leaving an alleged abusive relationship, was shot by the suspect."

Humphrey is also wanted on unrelated felony warrants and Gonzalez further added that murder charges were in the process of being filed against him.

Anyone with information about Humphrey's whereabouts are asked to call police at 713-274-9100 or CrimeStoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a database that collects information about shootings from all across the country, 14 people have been fatally shot in Houston since September 1 this year.

The same database found that 35 people across Texas were fatally shot during the same time period.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), intimate partner violence (IPV) affects millions of people in the U.S. every year.

The CDC said: "About 16 million women and 11 million men who reported experiencing contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime said that they first experienced these forms of violence before the age of 18."

It added: "IPV is a significant public health issue that has many individual and societal costs. About 75 percent of female IPV survivors and 48 percent of male IPV survivors experience some form of injury related to IPV.

"IPV can also result in death. Data from U.S. crime reports suggest that about one in five homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner.

"The reports also found that over half of female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a current or former male intimate partner."

Newsweek has contacted the HCSO for comment via email.