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21st April 2023
03:45pm BST
A man has been arrested after he allegedly shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents and a neighbour after a basketball rolled into his yard.
Robert Louis Singletary, 24, turned himself in to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, the Gaston Police Department said.
On Tuesday evening at 7.44pm, police had received a call about a local shooting. Investigators later determined that Singletary had shot three adults and a child.
The three adults were identified as William James White, Ashley Hildebrand and Derrick Kenneth Prather. White had suffered a punctured lung and liver damage from a gunshot wound and is in a serious condition in hospital.
Meanwhile, Hildebrand was grazed by a bullet and Prather was shot but not hit.
A 6-year-old girl also suffered a gunshot wound.
According to neighbours, the shooting started after a a basketball rolled into Singletary's yard from a group of local children playing basketball in the street.
Police have yet to confirm what prompted the attack, but neighbour Jonathan Robertson said children came to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into Singletary's yard, the Associated Press reports.
Singletary then went inside, got his gun and started shooting.
Locals told ABC News' Charlotte affiliate WSOC that Singletary had fired a gun at a neighbour before approaching William and his daughter Kinsley White.
Hildebrand told CNN that her family had nothing to do with the basketball game and that they had been outside grilling while Kinsley rode her bike.
Family members say White tried to draw the gunfire towards himself to protect his family, with Singletary then unloading a full magazine toward his neighbour.
Hildebrand said: "He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, 'I'm going to kill you.'"
Singletary is charged with four counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, and is due to appear in Florida court on Friday regarding his extradition back to North Carolina.
In December, Singletary was charged with assaulting his girlfriend with a mini sledgehammer, causing her injuries to her head.
The shooting is the latest in a string of shocking gun crimes in the US this week.
On Saturday (April 15), a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed by a homeowner after she pulled into the wrong driveway.
Kaylin Gillis, and three friends, were headed to a home in rural Washington County on Saturday when they accidentally entered Kevin Monahan’s driveway in Hebron, update New York.
According to Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Monahan fired two shots, with one hitting Gillis who will still inside the vehicle.
Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder.
This came after 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head by an 85-year-old for ringing the wrong doorbell.
The Black teen was shot by an 85-year-old white homeowner after ringing his doorbell.
Yarl had mistaken it for one he was to pick his siblings up from.
Andrew Lester has since been charged with first-degree assault.
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