3-Year-Old Shot, Killed At South FL Extended Stay Hotel: Reports

TAMARAC, FL — A 3-year-old girl was fatally shot Saturday morning at an Extended Stay America hotel on West Commercial Boulevard in Tamarac, according to multiple reports.

The shooting claimed the child’s life just after 8 a.m., who was pronounced dead at the hotel.
A neighbor told WSVN that she heard noise from the room all night before hearing a gunshot that morning.

“‘Pow!’ It exploded, so one shot. That was it,” she said, adding, “I was coming out the door. I could hear some screaming, ‘My baby dead, my baby dead.”

The girl killed has since been identified by family as De’yonnie Cleveland, who would have turned four in December, NBC6 reported.

"Very intelligent, very fun, loving, a very smart little girl,” her great-aunt, Connie Hafley, told the news outlet. “It don't make sense, I'm just trying to figure out how, why, what."

She said the girl’s mother was with her in the hotel at the time of the shooting.

"All she told me when she called my phone that when she woke up she was on the ground dead, that's all she told me and I lost it, I hung up,” Hafley said.

A U-Haul pick-up truck — which witnesses said drove away from the hotel after the shooting — was later found by investigators, WESH.

Two people in the truck were detained in relation to the case, but later released, WSVN said.