Girl, 6, shot after ball rolls into North Carolina man’s yard
Robert Louis Singletary, a North Carolina man, has been arrested in Florida after allegedly shooting a six-year-old girl and her parents following a basketball rolling into his yard.
Singletary turned himself into authorities in Tampa after a two-day manhunt. The girl and her mother were treated in hospital and discharged, but the father was seriously injured. Singletary faces four counts of first-degree attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He was previously known to police for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend with a sledgehammer in December.
The shooting reportedly occurred after the children went to retrieve their ball and the suspect shouted at them. The father of one of the children went to the suspect’s door and remonstrated with him. Singletary went inside his home and came out with a gun, firing indiscriminately at neighbours.
The six-year-old girl spoke out about the shooting, saying that the bullet went into her cheek, and her father remains in hospital being treated for a punctured lung and liver problems after being shot in the back.
The shooting is the latest in a string of gun violence incidents across the US involving young Americans who have mistakenly approached the wrong person or home.
