On January 7, 2024, at about 10:40 a.m. Dallas police responded to a shooting in the 700 block of Grambling Drive in Southeast Oak Cliff and found 17-year-old Lancaster High School student and Tigerette drill team member Ikea Imari Hood dead from a gunshot wound. Hood had given birth three weeks earlier. Her mother said Hood planned to tell her on-again, off-again boyfriend of two years, 17-year-old Trevon Darnell Wright, that he was not the father of her newborn on the day she was killed.

According to an arrest affidavit, Hood’s mother heard a loud noise around 10:30 a.m., found the bedroom door locked, saw the window open with the screen pushed out and discovered Hood inside with a gunshot wound. Wright had left the scene before police arrived; on January 9, 2024, he was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Task Force and charged with Hood’s murder and booked into the Dallas County Jail.

Hood’s death has deeply affected the Lancaster High School community, which provided counseling and held a balloon release in her honor. If anyone knew Ikea, her routines, or has information about what happened that morning, please share what you know.