Guatemalan woman shot by Nebraska neighbor 'felt like this was the end' as she rushed to save grandson

Story by Didi Martinez and Deon J. Hampton • 3h • 4 min read

One of the seven people who was shot by her Nebraska neighbor over the weekend wasn’t sure that her family would survive.

"I felt like this was the end," Maria Garcia Sanchez said about the shooting, which was so shocking to her that she wasn’t sure what was happening until she saw her 3-year-old grandson had been hit and sprung into action.

"I turned to see and the guy was at the window of the house,” Sanchez said Tuesday. "I picked up the child and I hugged him in front of me and I protected him because he wasn’t even moving his foot or head. And when I saw the man was shooting another, I turned him so that it didn’t hit the kid and wouldn’t hurt him more. And so I turned him and when I did, it got my arm. ... It hit my arm and my head."

. . .

The neighbor, Billy Booth, 74, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the Friday attack, which the Nebraska State Patrol is investigating as a possible hate crime.

. . .

Saul Lopez, interim executive director of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, a nonprofit that supports Indigenous people in Nebraska, said many immigrants have had trouble adjusting to life in the state.

“Nebraska is a very difficult environment for immigrants,” he said. “It is not an ideal place where immigrants can move into. It is a very hard place because a lot of people do not like immigrants at all.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/guatemalan-woman-shot-by-nebraska-neighbor-felt-like-this-was-the-end-as-she-rushed-to-save-grandson/ar-BB1piJZ1