Drive-By Shooting in NE Kills Girl, 15, Sitting in Car

Francine Lowe made the decision yesterday afternoon that she had been dreading since she got word that Myesha, her 15-year-old daughter, had been shot in the head late Saturday night.

"The machine had her breathing and all that," Lowe said a few hours after telling doctors at Howard University Hospital to take Myesha off life support. "But I saw my baby's brain coming out of her head. I knew she was gone."

Myesha, who recently finished ninth grade at Hine Junior High School in Southeast Washington, was shot while sitting with friends in a car parked near her home in Northeast. The slaying marked the latest in a wave of shootings involving children that has generated community outrage and left District police and public officials scrambling to find a way to halt the violence.

Police said yesterday that Myesha and two other girls were sitting in the car in the 1400 block of F Street NE when a dark-colored vehicle, possibly a Ford Crown Victoria, pulled up about 11:45 p.m. Saturday.

One or two people inside that vehicle fired into the girls' car, missing the other girls but striking Myesha, who was in the back seat, police said. Authorities said that at least 10 shots were fired and that they did not believe Myesha was the intended target.

"My daughter's death is a senseless death. . . . It was probably random," Lowe said.

The mother of another girl in the car, who asked not to be identified because her daughter is a witness, said the girls were talking and dancing on F Street earlier in the evening when a carload of boys stopped by. She said she believes that the same boys came back and fired shots into the car.

The incident comes at a time when the city's overall homicide rate has been falling but the number of fatal shootings of youths has increased. More children have been slain so far this year than in all of 2003.

Yesterday, shocked neighbors gathered to share what they knew about the shooting and comfort each other. They said Myesha lived nearby and regularly visited a friend on the block.

They are "very nice girls," said Cindi Garber, 47, who moved to the neighborhood in December -- "quiet and polite."

"They'd sit outside and just talk," she added, "what I did when I was in high school, hanging out."

Myesha, the third of Francine Lowe's seven children, showed academic promise and was involved in the Upward Bound program at Trinity College in the District. She was scheduled to leave with the group today for a trip to Niagara Falls, her mother said.

In 1997, 7-year-old Myesha -- in braids and a Peter Pan collar -- sat next to Hillary Rodham Clinton as the first lady read to a class at Cleveland Elementary School in Northwest. More recent pictures show a long-haired, smiling beauty. Her mother described her as happy and playful.

"You don't want to know what the last 24 hours have been like," Lowe, 35, said as she stood on the steps outside the family's apartment last night. "My daughter's dead. She's gone."