A 25-year-old woman has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a drive-by shooting count.

Alyssa Soto pulled the truck she was driving next to the victims' car in August 2024 near North Higley and East McKellips roads and began “yelling and cursing” at the family inside a Tesla, according to a release from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

The driver of the Tesla made a hand gesture toward Soto who pulled out a handgun and fired a shot at the family’s vehicle as it drove away.

The Tesla was equipped with cameras that captured the incident and confirmed the details of the attack, authorities said. The Tesla was not damaged, but a spent 9mm casing was recovered from the road.

Officers used traffic camera footage to identify the suspect vehicle and connected it to Soto, who was arrested at a residence in Mesa nine days after the incident.

During the arrest, officers recovered a 9mm handgun from her boyfriend’s truck, the release stated, adding Soto later admitted to the shooting and confirmed she was the person in the Tesla footage.

“Firing a gun at a family because you are angry is not a mistake – it’s a dangerous, criminal choice,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said. “There is no place for this kind of treacherous behavior in our community.”

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