An Egg Harbor Township woman accused of firing the stray bullet that struck a sleeping Atlantic City child inside his home was ordered held in jail.
Yontay Cooper, 33, denied she ever possessed a gun, and said instead that the claims are "hearsay" from a group that does not like her family.
“It’s not fair that I have to sit here because of what someone says,” she told Judge Christine Smith during a detention hearing last week.
Cooper was armed with a gun and Davis had a hammer, the charges claim.
Davis started smashing out vehicle windows and then tried to assault one of the five women in the group, the state alleges.
"Miss Davis then yelled to Miss Cooper to shoot them," Assistant Prosecutor Paige Jedlicka told the judge.
Cooper then fired five shots, Jedlicka said. None hit the women, but one went through a nearby residence and stuck an 11-year-old boy in his back.
The bullet remains lodged near his spine, she said. His name is not being released due to his age.
"Miss Cooper did not have a gun at all," defense attorney Stephen Funk told the judge. "No one saw her with a gun. The state hasn’t identified anyone who saw her with a gun. She did not shoot a gun. No one saw her shoot a gun."
Cooper also reiterated to the judge that "I don't have a gun, own a gun."
But Jedlicka said the state provided the names of those five women, and read them into the record, minus one who is a juvenile and was identified by initials.
"I can't go home to continue my employment to make sure I'm able to fight something that I did not do?" asked Cooper, who works as a barback at Hard Rock. "These are people who do not like us that were constantly starting stuff."
Jedlicka said the five in the group were not the only ones making the claims. A woman who drove to the scene with Cooper and Davis also placed them there, she said.
The women fled the scene in that witness' vehicle. They were arrested later separately.
Davis, 23, of Galloway Township, appeared briefly in court last week. Her attorney, Lou Barbone, requested a postponement of her detention hearing, which is now set for this Friday.
Both women are in the Atlantic County Justice Facility.
