Police Arrest N.C. Man Who Allegedly Shot A 6-Year-Old After Basketball Rolls Into His Yard
A North Carolina man has been arrested for allegedly shooting three people, including a 6-year-old child after a basketball rolled into his yard, ABC News reports.
On Thursday, the Gaston County Police Department announced that Robert Louis Singletary turned himself into the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa, Fla. 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.
Per the report, a group of children were playing in the neighborhood when a basketball rolled into Singletary's yard. In response, Singletary allegedly fired a gun at a neighbor and shot at a father and daughter, William White and 6-year-old Kinsley White. According to the police department, White suffered a gunshot wound after being shot in the back. He is currently hospitalized and remains in serious condition.
White’s mother, Debbie Wykle White, gave an update on her son’s status.
“He is just taking it day by day,” she said. “He’s in a lot of pain.”
"Why did you shoot my daddy and me? Why did you shoot a kid's dad?" Kinsley said in an emotional interview. She was struck by the bullet fragments that required stitches on her face and was grazed by a bullet on her elbow.
Two other victims, Ashley Hildebrand, William White’s partner and Kinseley’s mother, and Derrick Kenneth Prather, were also hit by stray bullets.
"He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, 'I'm going to kill you,'" Hilderbrand recalled.
Eyewitnesses described the horrific scene where adults and children were running for safety while Singeltary continued to fire his gun in the neighborhood.
Before the shooting incident, Singletary has had several run-ins with the law. In December, he was charged with assault and kidnapping for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend with a mini-sledgehammer and holding her hostage in his apartment for over two hours.
Gaston County Superior Court clerk Jennifer Davis said that the charges in the case are still pending and he has yet not entered a plea.
For the North Carolina shooting, he is slated to appear in court in Florida on Friday and will be extradited back to North Carolina.
A GoFundMe page established for the family has raised more than $48,000 as of Friday afternoon (April 21).
