5-year-old girl recovering after being shot while sleeping in Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A 5-year-old girl is out of the hospital after she was shot at her home in Minneapolis earlier this week while sleeping in her own bed.

She is all smiles and jokes around a lot, but beneath it all she’s adjusting to being in a wheelchair for at least the next six weeks. She will likely be the only kindergartener who has to describe the moment she was shot when she starts school this fall.

“It sounded like a hammer trying to fix my walls,” she said.

That’s how an innocent 5-year-old describes waking up to seven gunshots in the alley outside her bedroom Monday morning.

One of those bullets made its way in, striking Jayda Holmes in the top of her foot and hitting three bones before coming out the side.

“The bullet flew past her head and hit her foot,” said Jayda’s mother, Martha Timberlake. “So, if she had been closer to the edge of her bed, it would have went in her head.”

Timberlake had just left the home before 6 a.m. and heard the shots from a nearby gas station.

“Just pure panic and fear at that time,” she said. “And then I get there and I see her foot and it’s fear, sadness, anger, everything just running through me.”

With two other young kids, plus her mother and boyfriend living on Fourth Street, Timberlake has worried about violence in the Hawthorne neighborhood in the past. She wonders if the bullet that hit Jayda was intended for someone living in the upstairs unit of the building.

“I never thought this would be one of my kids, ever,” Timberlake said. “When we moved there, my biggest fear was my son’s window, because he’s got the front room. Never hers, because the garage is right there.”

For now, Jayda is soaking up the extra attention, getting toys and candy from her mom.

Timberlake says her daughter’s smile has not faltered.

“I’m sad for her. I’m hurt for her, but I’m angry. I’m more angry than anything, because it’s stupid. It’s senseless,” she says.

Jayda and Timberlake are living at a hotel where her family will stay until they find a new place to live.

Meanwhile, police are still investigating the incident, but there are no arrests at this point.