LR police ID mom, her son, 2, in killings

Infant daughter was in nearby car

The two people gunned down in a southwest Little Rock parking lot Thursday were a mother and her 2-year-old son, a police spokesman said Friday.

Little Rock police responded to a call at about 7:40 a.m. Thursday, where they found 23-year-old Jamika Lewis and her son, Ja’Shun Watson, lying in the parking lot of Eagle Hill Apartments, department spokesman Eric Barnes said in a news release Friday.

Both the mother and the child had been killed by gunshot wounds.

Lewis’ infant baby girl was found in a nearby Chevrolet Cavalier that was left unattended, Barnes said. The child was uninjured but was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for a welfare check, Barnes said. The baby had been checked out of the hospital by Friday

afternoon.

Barnes said he was not sure of the exact age of the infant, but police reports list her as being born in 2018. The month and day of her birth are redacted in the report.

The exact time of death was not immediately specified, but a police report lists the time of the shooting as being between 8 p.m. Wednesday and 7:38 a.m. Thursday, when the first 911 call was received.

Residents at the Eagle Hill Apartment complex, located just north of West Baseline Road in southwest Little Rock, called police after the woman and child were found lying in the parking lot and were unresponsive to attempts to “wake them up,” Barnes said in the release.

Lewis and her children lived at West Wood Apartments

at 1 Nandina Circle, about 2 miles from Eagle Hill Apartments, the police report said. Officers did not specify immediately why Lewis was in the West Baseline Road apartment complex.

Lewis and Ja’Shun were taken to the state Crime Laboratory for an autopsy, Barnes said.

Police have named no suspects.

The two slayings are the 41st Little Rock homicide incident this year in which at least one person was killed. Ten of those incidents have occurred within 1 mile of Baseline Road.