A basketball rolled into the yard and a suspect shot a 6-year-old
A 24-year-old man in Gaston County, N.C., is charged with attempted first-degree murder and attempted murder with a firearm by a felon
Police in Gaston County, N.C., say 24-year-old Robert Louis Singletary shot three individuals shortly before 8 p.m. on Tuesday night in a neighborhood outside of Gastonia, a city about 20 miles west of Charlotte.
A man was shot at but did not injured, a woman was grazed by a bullet, and a child was seriously injured. One adult remained hospitalized as of Wednesday, police chief Stephen Zill said in a statement.
“I want to say to the people of Gaston County — this sort of violence will not stand,” he added. “We conducted a large-scale search overnight for Mr. Singletary and we have partnered with the United States Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force to aid us as we continue to search.”
North Carolina authorities charged Singletary with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflicting serious injury.
Several young kids were playing basketball when their ball went into Singletary’s yard, according to neighbors. He ran down the street, shooting at a neighbor and then approaching White, who was playing outside.
His wife, Ashley Hildebrand, was grazed in the elbow. His daughter, 6-year-old Kinsley White, was released from the hospital after having bullet fragments removed from her cheek.
Family members told the newspaper that they saw Singletary “chasing” William, who collapsed bleeding on the ground and remains hospitalized with liver damage.
How many gun-related shootings are perpetrated? Saying goodbye to Yarl, Kaylin Gillis, and Kinsley
The next day, speaking to the Gazette while holding her grandfather’s hand, the kindergartner said she was feeling a bit better. She stated that they didn’t know the man.
Kinsley’s grandma said there had been problems since Singletary moved into the area, with himcursing kids and running them out of his yard. And their family is eager to see him brought to justice.
Yarl was shot and injured after ringing the wrong doorbell. Kaylin Gillis, 20, was fatally shot when her friends’ car pulled into the wrong driveway in upstate New York. A high school cheerleader in Texas was critically injured after getting into the wrong car.
According to Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “Rage-inspired shootings” are on the rise, but still relatively rare.
Since there is no national repository of information about this type of shooting, media reports, survey data and law enforcement statements are the primary sources of information. Data is captured at the local level and there’s no uniform system for sharing it, she tells Morning Edition.
What do the research results say about why people shoot in these situations? Over the last few years, Anderman points out, there has been an increase in gun ownership, a steady easing of gun laws in many states, and the gun industry’s narrative of fear that encourages people to arm up for self-defense.
The Case for Robert Louis Singletary in Charlotte, Fla., Jan. 26, 2019: A Newly Detected Felonious Assault Detector
A North Carolina man was arrested in Florida following a two day hunt for him after he was accused of shooting a 6-year old and her parents.
The man who turned himself in to the sheriff’s office 600 miles away was Robert Louis Singletary.
Gaston County District Attorney Travis Page is vowing to hold Singletary accountable, telling CBS affiliate WBTV that “we’ll be damn sure to be loud and clear” when the case goes to court.
He was convicted in 2017 of felonious assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflicting serious injury, and released from prison on parole in September 2020, per the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.
The mother of the 4 kids in the family said they would have to do without while their father was out of work.
