Authorities say 19-year-old Niliyah Montgomery was shot after a fight outside her home on Feb. 1.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The family of 19-year-old Niliyah Montgomery is mourning a young mother killed outside her San Bernardino home while police search for a 20-year-old woman they say shot her after a fight ended on Feb. 1.
Police this week named Elvia Johnson as the suspect and said she is wanted on a homicide warrant, giving the case a clearer target but not yet an arrest. The development matters both to investigators and to Montgomery’s relatives, who have spent weeks speaking publicly about her death, her 3-year-old daughter and the sharp break left in a family that says it is still waiting for justice.
The shooting happened about 5 p.m. on Feb. 1 in the 1600 block of West Concord Street, according to San Bernardino police. Officers said multiple people were involved in a physical altercation outside the home. What started as an argument, family members said in local television coverage, became a fistfight in front of the residence. Police say that by the time the gunshot was fired, the fight had ended. Montgomery was walking back into the house when the suspect entered a vehicle and fired one round, striking her in the back. The short sequence has become central to the case because it places the gunfire after the visible street clash was over. Her mother, Tasha Montgomery, later told reporters that her daughter ran to her crying “Mom” after she was hit.
That account gave the tragedy a deeply personal frame, and her mother’s words spread quickly in local coverage. Tasha Montgomery described seeing blood coming from her daughter’s mouth and said the loss reached beyond the crime scene in an instant. She called Niliyah her firstborn and said, “She was everything to me.” Family members also said the 19-year-old was raising a 3-year-old daughter and had returned to school after dropping out when she became pregnant. Those details do not change the legal questions in the case, but they help explain why the shooting has drawn broader attention than a standard wanted bulletin. The victim was not just a name attached to a homicide file. She was a daughter, a mother and a teenager whose relatives say she was trying to move forward with her life.
The public record still has major gaps. Police have not said what caused the original dispute, how many people took part in the fight, whether Johnson and Montgomery knew each other well, or whether detectives believe more than one person helped the suspect leave. Authorities also have not publicly described the vehicle beyond saying Johnson entered one before the shot was fired. Reports from local stations placed the scene near Medical Center Drive, in a neighborhood west of downtown San Bernardino. Montgomery was taken from that block to a hospital, where she later died. Detectives identified Johnson weeks later, suggesting a longer investigative process that may have included witness interviews, neighborhood canvassing or video review, though police have not outlined those steps in detail.
What officers have said is direct. Johnson has an active warrant, investigators say, and should be considered armed and dangerous. The police department released her name and image and asked anyone who knows where she is to contact the homicide unit. That marks an important procedural shift. In the first stage, the case was a fatal shooting with no public suspect. Now it is an active manhunt tied to a named person. The next developments are likely to come through arrest records and court filings, which would show the formal charge level, the prosecution theory and any early statements from a defense attorney. Until that happens, the legal picture remains one-sided, based on police allegations and the family’s account of the shooting’s aftermath.
Even so, the family’s voice has helped define how the public understands the case. Their statements emphasized not only violence but interruption: a life cut off at home, after the fight appeared to be over, with a small child left behind. That has made the story land differently from a brief blotter item. It is a homicide investigation, but it is also a story about what remains after the gunfire stops. Relatives are left describing the last seconds they saw a loved one alive. A child will grow up with the absence. A residential block becomes known for a single moment late on a Sunday afternoon. Police say they are still trying to find the woman they believe caused that loss.
Johnson had been publicly named as the suspect as of Tuesday, March 24, and was still being sought by police. The next milestone is an arrest, which would move the case from public appeals and family statements into the first formal court proceedings.
Author note: Last updated March 24, 2026.