A six-year-old girl and her parents have been harmed after a furious neighbor opened fire when a basketball rolled into his yard.
On Tuesday evening (April 18), several young children were playing a game when their ball rolled down the street and into 24-year-old homeowner Robert Singletary’s front yard in Gastonia, North Carolina.
According to WSOC-TV, Singletary was angry so he ran down the street and allegedly blasted a gun at a neighbor. He then proceeded to shoot at a man named William White who ran away with his young daughter, Kinsley.
The father was critically injured attempting to protect his daughter and is recovering in the hospital. His wife and mother of the youngster, Ashley Hilderbrand, was grazed by a bullet.
"We don’t even know the man," Kinsley - who needed stitches for bullet fragments to the cheek - told the news station. "Why did you shoot my daddy and me? Why did you shoot a kid’s dad?"
Hilderbrand told the outlet that the suspected shooter had threatened her husband and six-year-old daughter's lives, saying: "He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, 'I’m going to kill you.'"
The mother is recovering at home with the youngster and shared that Singletary allegedly kept firing at her family, repeatedly missing until he was out of bullets. Several neighbors have backed up her claim.
Kinsley’s grandmother, Carolyn Hilderbrand, has spoken out about the terrible incident and said: "I believe he would have got me and my husband too. He just run out of bullets."
Gaston County Police have obtained warrants on Singletary for his involvement in the shooting. They said that he has been charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, as reported by The New York Post.
The department disclosed that additional charges are likely because shots entered neighbors' homes. They are also seeking the public's help in locating and arresting the man, even 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, per the outlet.
District Attorney Travis Page also noted: "We’ll be damn sure to be loud and clear when this case comes to court," as cited by WSOC-TV.
The publication stated that law enforcement has help from U.S. Marshals in the search for Singletary.
"Just please turn yourself in. There was no sense in what you did," Hilderbrand pleaded.
