The parents of a 3-year-old boy who was fatally shot in the head last week have both been arrested, and police say they have found no evidence of events recounted by the boy’s mother, according to court records obtained Thursday by The Dallas Morning News.
Jalexus Washington Jr. died Monday after he was taken to Medical City Dallas Hospital in North Dallas. Police said he’d been shot in the head.
The boy’s mother, 26-year-old Lacravivonne Washington, brought him to the hospital about 10 a.m. and police said she told investigators he’d been shot in a road-rage incident — but authorities say they have found no evidence for such an incident. (Public records show the mother’s name as Lacravivonne, but social-media profiles show it as Lacravionne.)
Jalexus’ autopsy showed that the 3-year-old’s gunshot wound came from close proximity, ruling out the possibility of him being shot from a passing vehicle, according to court records.
Both parents arrested
Lacravivonne Washington and her husband, Jalexus Washington Sr., were both arrested Wednesday on outstanding traffic warrants and taken to the Dallas police headquarters. Police said the child’s mother declined to speak with detectives, but court records show his father provided a voluntary statement.
Lacravivonne Washington was being held Thursday in the Dallas County jail on charges of endangering a child and tampering with evidence, as well as warrants for failure to use a child safety seat and speeding out of Carrollton, jail records showed.
According to a police narrative, a forensic analysis of a gun found on Jalexus Washington Sr. determined it was the gun that killed the boy. Police said Thursday evening that Lacravivonne Washington faces the tampering with evidence charge because she “concealed a handgun during the investigation.”
Her bail was set at $25,000 on the endangerment charge and had not been set for the evidence-tampering charge. She did not have an attorney listed in court records.
Jalexus Washington Sr. was arrested on a charge of unlawful carrying of a weapon, and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department said he was released Thursday afternoon after posting $1,500 bond.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said four of the Washingtons’ other children — ages 2, 4, 7 and 9 — were in its custody Thursday but had been placed with a relative.
What the investigation has revealed
According to police, the 3-year-old was seen about 9:40 a.m. Monday with Lacravivonne Washington at a doughnut shop in the 9400 block of Walnut Street in far northeast Dallas, roughly 20 minutes before he arrived at the hospital.
Lacravivonne Washington told police she was involved in a road-rage incident near a park at the intersection of Arbor Park and Whitehurst drives in Lake Highlands — about two miles south of the doughnut shop — and described the other driver as a man in a red shirt in a dark-colored four-door sedan.
“I’m still trying to get myself together right,” she said when reached by phone earlier this week. She also wrote several Facebook posts grieving for her son and mourning that she only had three years with him. “My baby took his last breath in my arms,” she wrote. Her Facebook profile was no longer viewable Thursday.
According to an arrest-warrant affidavit, when police initially interviewed Lacravivonne Washington at the hospital, police learned she left the shop with three children — ages 2, 3 and 4 — and all were unrestrained in the car.
She told police she noticed a car following her and turned into a neighborhood to get away, according to the affidavit. She parked along a street and took the kids out of the car when “the aggressive vehicle returned and shot at them,” the affidavit says.
Lacravivonne Washington gave officers permission to search her car and said there were no firearms inside, but police found a handgun in the glove compartment “where the children could easily reach it,” the affidavit says. Police later determined she purchased the gun on March 4, along with a second weapon that police later found with Jalexus Washington Sr.
The affidavit also said there were no child safety seats or restraints in the car.
In a second interview at the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, Lacravivonne Washington said she bought the gun that was found in her car and reached for it twice during the road-rage incident but did not pull it out, the affidavit says.
After Jalexus Washington Sr. was arrested, he told police he was at work during the incident and did not know where the gun was, but said it should have been under the care of his wife, who he confirmed had purchased it.
Anyone with information about the shooting may contact Detective David Grubbs at 214-671-3675 or david.grubbsjr@dallascityhall.com and refer to case No. 053933-2022.
Staff writer Kelli Smith contributed to this report.