Police are still searching for a motive and suspects. One of the leads investigators are looking into is whether there was a connection between the drive-by in Richmond and a fatal shooting at a nightclub in San Francisco this past weekend. Sources told ABC7, the pregnant victim had a child by one of the targets in that nightclub shooting.
Just a few feet away from the spot where Sharanda Thomas was killed in a drive-by shooting family and friends prayed for answers Thursday.
Thomas was six months pregnant and already the mother of two young children. Her family does not believe she was the target.
"It just was random, I don't believe it had nothing to do with no San Francisco," Thomas' father Lowell Thomas said.
But sources tell ABC7 that the father of one of Thomas' children was a target in a weekend shooting at Suede night club in San Francisco. A Richmond man was killed and police say the shooter was also from Richmond.
ABC7 also learned 23-year-old Thomas was due to make a Richmond court appearance Thursday. Arrested in December, she faced felony charges for drug possession and receiving stolen goods. Her boyfriend, Leroy Dewayne Johnson, who was in the car with her during the shooting and survived, was also arrested but it does not appear he was charged
As for Wednesday's brazen, lunchtime drive-by, police still do not have a motive.
The couple was parked in front of Thomas' family's home. They had just a few minutes before picking up her daughter from kindergarten. It was her son's fourth birthday.
More than 30 shots were fired into the Oldsmobile. Thomas was pronounced dead at the scene; Johnson remains hospitalized in stable condition.
"We are very much concerned about retaliatory shootings at this point; there was a volatile scene out there, everybody's very understandably upset that this pregnant woman was shot and killed," Richmond Police Sgt. Bisa Thomas said.
As family members prayed outreach workers with Richmond's Office of Neighborhood Safety canvassed the Iron Triangle neighborhood, an area that is no stranger to violence.
"We have to come together; the community has to come together and voice their opinion about what's going on; if the community don't come together, I don't think too much is going to change," Neighborhood Safety spokesperson Sal Garcia said.
Witnesses have only a vague description of the vehicle in the drive-by. It was a silver or gray Chevy HHR with tinted windows. Police say four men were in the car at the time of the shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call the Richmond Police Department.
