Global Courant 2023-04-20 07:55:35
A six-year-old girl and her parents were injured by gunfire Tuesday night after a basketball rolled down a North Carolina residential street into a man’s yard. WSOC TV.
Witnesses told the police station that the gunman ran up and down the street, firing until he ran out of bullets.
Gaston County Police said Wednesday they were still on the hunt for the alleged gunman, identified as Robert Louis Singletary, a 24-year-old man described as “armed and dangerous.”
The young girl, Kinsley White, was hospitalized after being seriously injured. She was released overnight, family members said Queen City News. Her father, William White, remains in hospital.
“He came out with a gun, he started shooting,” Kinsley explained to the outlet. “I hope my father is well.”
Her mother, Ashley Hilderbrand, was scraped by a bullet and treated at the scene. She told WSOC she heard the gunman threaten her husband and daughter: “I’m going to kill you.”
He then chased after them, firing, as William White tried to protect Kinsley, Hilderbrand said.
A fourth person was shot at, but was not injured, police said.
Singletary faces multiple charges, including four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
In December, he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend what the police describe like a “mini sledgehammer.” He allegedly stopped her from leaving his apartment until she cleared evidence of the attack. The woman was able to escape about two hours later.
Neighbors told WSOC that Singletary was new to the area and often got angry with children in the neighborhood.
Citing the ongoing investigation, a spokesman for the Gaston County Police Department declined to confirm details of the case.
“I want to say to the people of Gaston County: This kind of violence cannot stand,” Stephen Zill, the chief of the department, said in a statement posted on social media Wednesday afternoon.
Story continues
Police are working with the US Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force to find Singletary, Zill said.
“We don’t even know the guy,” Kinsley told WSOC, appearing on camera with stitches in her cheek. “Why did you shoot my father and me? Why did you shoot a child’s father?
Gunman’s grandson says Ralph Yarl shooting ‘should never have happened’
The incident came a day after a recent spate of high-profile shootings involving young victims. A 25-year-old man was arrested in Texas on Monday for shooting at a group of people four high school cheerleaders after one of them accidentally tried to get into his car, thinking it was hers.
During the weekend, Kaylin Gillis, a 20-year-old woman, was killed in upstate New York after the car she was in drove into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house. A 65-year-old man was charged with one count of second-degree murder.
And last Thursday, a teenage honors student was named Ralph Jarl was shot twice by an 84-year-old man after accidentally ringing the doorbell at the wrong house while trying to pick up his younger brothers in a Missouri neighborhood. Yarl was discharged from the hospital this week.
Get the Daily Beast’s biggest scoops and scandals straight to your inbox. Sign up now.
Stay informed and get unlimited access to the Daily Beast’s unparalleled reporting. Subscribe now.
