A 5- year-old boy from Ville Platte is now recovering after he was shot in the leg late Wednesday night.

The alleged drive-by shooting happened when he was riding in the car with his dad, sister and step-mother. They rushed him immediately to his grandmother, Sonna Wilson's house.

"This violence needs to stop... I'm just tired. I'm tired," says Wilson, who was up all night after sending her grandson to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

"My grandbaby could've been dead and gone right now. They all could have been dead and gone because if they would've hit that gas tank, they would've blew up," Wilson said.

She says De-Monte is the sweetest, strongest little boy and he will make it out of the hospital on Thursday evening.

"We Face-Timed him. He talked well. Up and alert, not even crying about the pain, not complaining about the pain or anything," Wilson said.

Grateful for the life that was saved this morning, Wilson wants this to be a lesson for those inciting violence, and more importantly, she says, for those who's job it is to protect the community from it.

"They do need to be patrolling more but, no police. They only have one cop at night, one cop during the day. With a city like this, why you only get one cop?"

After budget cuts eliminated eleven police department positions, leaving twelve officers total in the city, Wilson worries her questions may never be answered.

We reached out to police, who did not comment on the issue.

A 17-year-old has been identified as a suspect in this shooting. More on the developments here.