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Woman tells WBRZ she and her child hid in a Coke trailer during the Christmas parade chaos
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BATON ROUGE - What was supposed to be an event filled with Christmas joy for all ages in downtown Baton Rouge quickly turned to chaos when gunfire rang out.
"It wasn't real, at the moment that it happened,” said Gayle James who attended the parade. "This was like a family, we were there to see the parade. You know, it was Christmas, that just goes to show it doesn't matter."
James had just recently moved back to Louisiana, and was excited to bring her 6-year-old daughter to her first parade. In the stampede, they hid in a soda trailer that was on the parade route.
“I threw my baby over the front part of the trailer, I threw her in there and I climbed over and we huddled down, and she goes, 'Mom I’m scared,' I said, 'I'm scared, too, let's pray, it's all we can do'," James said.
The shooting happened around 7 p.m. near the U.S.S. KIDD Museum downtown.
According to the police, a 21-year-old woman was injured when she was shot in the back, and a juvenile was hit by an ATV whose driver was trying to leave the scene.
Both victims are expected to be okay.
After that night, James fears her daughter is scared for life.
"You know our most innocent in the world, I don't want to take that away from her at 6-year-olds," James said.
As of Monday, no suspects have been named. Anyone with information is encouraged to call Baton Rouge police.
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