A 58-year-old Louisiana resident is in police custody after he shot his teenage neighbor in the back of her head.
via: The Daily Beast
The man told police he had “unknowingly” hit the girl after opening fire on a group of people running away from his home—kids playing hide-and-seek–as it later turned out.
In the “early morning hours” of the day, according to a news release from the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to a tiny Lake Charles neighborhood for a reported shooting.
After the wounded teenage girl was found at the scene, detectives were summoned, discovering that several children had been playing in the area, hiding on a neighbor’s property.
“When detectives spoke with the property owner, David V. Doyle, 58, [of] Starks, he stated he observed shadows outside his home, at which time he went inside and retrieved his firearm,” the sheriff’s office said.
Doyle then told the investigators he went back outside and began firing at the people he saw running away from his home.
The girl was taken to a hospital out of town with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the sheriff’s office. Family members told KPLC 7 News, a local NBC affiliate, that she was “okay and recovering.”
The outlet noted that the neighborhood where the shooting took place “is a dead-end road with only three residents: Doyle, the victim’s family and a relative to the victim’s family.”
The 58-year-old was booked at 6:45 a.m. that morning, online records show. Charged with aggravated battery, four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal discharge of a firearm, Doyle remained in custody as of Monday night.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing, police said.
The shooting is one of several such incidents—involving young victims making a common mistake and armed older people reaching for their firearms in response—in recent weeks.
Last month, 16-year-old Black honors student Ralph Yarl was wounded by gunfire after he rang an 84-year-old Missouri resident’s doorbell by accident. Just two days later, a 20-year-old woman named Kaylin Gillis was killed by a 65-year-old man in upstate New York after pulling up his driveway while looking for a friend’s house.
