Tony Earls, 41, shot at a car that 9-year-old Arlene Alvarez was riding in on February 14. He believed that a man that had just robbed him at gunpoint, at a Chase Bank, was inside.
Arlene was listening to her headphones and didn’t hear her dad telling her to get down. She was shot and killed.
Earls now faces a charge of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury. He posted a $100,000 bond and was freed from jail on Thursday evening.
Arlene’s family is outraged. “If you kill a child in this community, and it is by an intentional act, and it was reckless in nature, and we can show that on a probable cause hearing, you should not have no bond,” stated the family’s lawyer.
The family doesn’t agree with Earls’ justification that he shot his weapon because of the crime that had just happened to him. They noted the fact that solely because he saw his assailant pass by, didn’t mean it gave him the right to shoot.
They added that the self-defense claim doesn’t work in this case because there wasn’t an immediate threat or fear for his life.
Earls, a father of six, was seen emotional during a news conference as he expressed his grief over the child’s death.
