By Jamiel Lynch | CNN
A manhunt is underway near Charlotte, North Carolina, after a 6-year-old and her dad were seriously wounded when a neighbor reportedly began shooting after a basketball rolled into his yard — at least the fourth time this week an apparently ordinary blunder led to gun violence in the United States.
Suspect Robert Louis Singletary, 24, should be considered armed and dangerous, Gaston County police said.
Kids had been “playing basketball, and a ball had rolled down that way and had rolled into their yard and they went to go get it,” neighbor Jonathan Robertson told CNN affiliate WBTV.
“We never expected anybody would break a gun out amongst all those kids,” he said. “I mean, that was insane.”
Police would not confirm what started the Tuesday night shooting in Gastonia, citing the investigation.
It was another case this week alone in which young people were shot after seemingly ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time, including two teen cheerleaders mistakenly approaching someone else’s vehicle in a Texas grocery store parking lot, a 16-year-old who rang the wrong doorbell in Kansas City and a 20-year-old who turned into the wrong New York driveway.
The United States is the only nation with more civilian guns than people, according to the Small Arms Survey.
In the Gastonia attack, “one adult victim … remains hospitalized in Charlotte,” Police Chief Stephen Zill, said Wednesday evening in a statement. “The juvenile that was shot, as well as (a) second adult that was grazed by a bullet, have been treated and released.”
The Charlotte Observer said the second adult was the little girl’s mother.
Another man was shot at but not hurt, police said in a news release.
Police have secured warrants for Singletary on 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, they said.
“I want to say to the people of Gaston County — this sort of violence will not stand,” Zill said, adding the US Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force is helping hunt for Singletary.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
Hits: 0
