A 6-year-old North Carolina girl and her parents were shot Tuesday night, April 18, by an angry neighbour after a basketball rolled into his yard.
Kinsley White was wounded along with her mother Ashley Hilderbrand and father William White when a gunman opened fire at around 8 p.m. in Gaston County after he became enraged about the bouncing ball.
Mr White was critically injured attempting to protect his daughter.
Neighbours told the station a group of kids were playing basketball when the ball bounced into the alleged gunman’s yard.
Suspected shooter Robert Louis Singletary grew angry and ran down the street as he fired at a neighbour, they reportedly said.
Then he came back and began shooting at the family, including the young daughter who needed stitches on her face from bullet fragments, WSOC-TV reported.
Mother, Hilderbrand, was grazed by a bullet and is recovering at home with her daughter.
The father was also hit, and is still in the hospital, police said on Wednesday, April 19.
He reportedly tried to draw gunfire toward him to keep his kids safe before he was struck in the back.
“We don’t even know the man,” Kinsley told the station, adding. “Why did you shoot my daddy and me? Why did you shoot a kid’s dad?”
Neighbors told the station Singletary allegedly kept shooting until he was out of bullets.
“He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, ‘I’m going to kill you,’” Hilderbrand told the station.
Authorities said Singletary, 24, is still on the run.
He’s been charged with four counts of first-degree attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, Gaston County police said.
The department is seeking the public’s help in locating and arresting the fugitive, offering a $1,000 reward.
“I want to say to the people of Gaston County – this sort of violence will not stand,” Police Chief Stephen Zill said in a statement, noting the US Marshals are not involved in the search for Singletary.
