Photo Courtesy of Gaston County Police Department
A North Carolina man accused of shooting a 6-year-old girl and her father appeared in a Florida court on Friday to face charges.
Robert Louis Singletary, 24, was booked into a Gaston County jail on December 2 and charged with first-degree kidnapping, communicating threats, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury.
According to CNN, police said he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend with a mini-sledgehammer, kept her inside his apartment, and refused to let her leave for over two hours. He was held on a $250,000 bond but released on December 15.
This was four months before the shooting in North Carolina. The Tuesday shooting occurred after a basketball rolled into Singletary’s yard, and he yelled at the children who came to retrieve it. One of the kids told his father, who then went to Singletary’s house to tell him to stop cussing the kids out.
Singletary then walked inside, came out with a gun, and opened fire at the neighbors, wounding a 6-year-old girl and her parents, the neighbors said.
“We never expected anybody would break a gun out amongst all those kids,” neighbor Jonathan Robertson told CNN affiliate WBTV. “I mean that was insane.”
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The 6-year-old girl was hit in the cheek and was released from the hospital.
“I couldn’t get inside in time so he shot my daddy in the back,” she said.
Singletary’s grandmother, April Betsey, said the family is heartbroken over what happened.
“I understand what the mother of the little girl is going through,” she said. “We’re so sorry about the way this happened and that baby got hurt.”
Singletary was arrested Thursday afternoon. He waived extradition and is being held without bond on a fugitive warrant. He faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and possession of a firearm.