‘Why did you shoot a kid’s dad?’ 6-year-old, parents shot after ball rolls into man’s yard

A North Carolina man allegedly shot at a 6-year-old girl and her parents, hitting her father in the back Tuesday after a basketball neighborhood children were playing with rolled into his yard, according to WSOC-TV.

Several young children were playing basketball when the ball rolled down the street and into Robert Singletary’s yard, WSOC reported. Singletary got angry about the ball, police said, retrieved a gun and ran down the street firing it.

Gaston County Police Department officials said they responded to a call that came in at 7:44 p.m. on Tuesday concerning a shooting and found four people who had been shot.

One of Singletary’s neighbors was grazed by bullets as were 6-year-old Kinsley White and her mother, Ashley Hildebrand. William White, Kinsley’s father, was shot in the back.

“Why did you shoot my daddy and me? Why did you shoot a kid’s dad?” Kinsley, 6, asked in an interview.

Kinsley’s mother, Ashley Hilderbrand, said Singletary told her husband and daughter that he was going to kill them.

“He looked at my husband and my daughter and told them, ‘I’m going to kill you,’” said Hilderbrand.

Hilderbrand said Singletary chased them while firing the gun, and that her husband tried to draw gunfire toward him and away from the children in the neighborhood. He was shot in the back in his front yard, WSOC reported.

According to The Washington Post, local and federal law are still searching for Singletary, who was also charged with assaulting his girlfriend with a sledgehammer in December.

He has been charged by Gaston County officials with four counts of attempted first-degree murder; two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflicting serious injury; and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, according to a statement from police on Wednesday.

Law enforcement authorities warned anyone against approaching Singletary if they saw him.