Girl, 4, Found Shot Dead in Car Backseat on Interstate: Police

A four-year-old girl was shot dead in the backseat of a car on a Georgia highway, according to police.

DeKalb Police Department officers raced to I-85 north on North Druid Hills Road in Atlanta after they received reports of a shooting at about 7:38 p.m.

When police arrived they found a four-year-old girl had been injured with a gunshot wound, according to CBS46.

They later confirmed the girl had died as a result of her injuries and that no other people had been shot.

The DeKalb Police Department said its Homicide Assault team has since launched an investigation into the shooting.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a database that collects information about shootings from across the U.S., eight people have been shot dead in Atlanta since August 1. Six children aged up to 11 have been fatally shot there since January 1.

Newsweek has contacted the DeKalb Police Department for comment.

There have been numerous cases across the U.S. where children have been shot while in a vehicle on highways.

Last year, toddler Jasper Wu was shot while he was asleep in a car with three adults, including his mother who was driving on a California highway at the time.

The California Highway Patrol said a bullet came through the windshield and killed Jasper during the ride from San Francisco to Fremont.

Officers said Jasper was not the target and that the vehicle had become caught between two cars where the occupants had opened fire on one another.

In another case last year, a 23-month-old toddler died after being shot while inside a car that was on a California freeway at the time.

When officers arrived, they found the white Lexus sedan had been struck by a stray bullet. It's understood there were three children and three adults in the car at the time, but that the toddler was the only one who was hit.

The child was rushed to Oakland Children's Hospital, but doctors pronounced them dead shortly after arrival.

Earlier this year, a girl was shot in the head during a road rage incident while she was on the way to a grocery store with her family.

The shooting happened when the family somehow got into a dispute with at least one person in a white truck. At some point, shots were fired and the nine-year-old girl was shot in the head.

A Houston Police Department spokesperson told reporters at the time: "What they're (the family) telling us right now is they were heading down the road. They observed a white truck and another vehicle that looked like maybe they were racing.

"Somehow our complainants got in between the individuals and so, one of those individuals in the race decided to go after our complainants."