(Houston) A teenage girl was shot in the head in the southern United States by a man who ‘saw shadows’ on her property as children played hide and seek there, local police said.
The facts took place Sunday in Starks, a town in Louisiana near the border with Texas, the Calcasieu County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Officers found a 14-year-old girl “suffering from a gunshot wound to the back of her head”. She was taken to hospital with “non-lethal injuries”.
Investigators learned that several youths were playing “hide and seek in the neighborhood and hiding on a neighbor’s property”, police said.
Questioned by the investigators, David Doyle explained “having seen shadows outside his house” and having gone to get his firearm inside.
The 58-year-old man then “went back outside and observed people running from his property, at which point he started shooting at them and unknowingly hit the girl”, said the sheriff’s office.
He was taken into custody and charged with several counts, including aggravated assault with a weapon.
This news item is part of a recent tragic succession of banal interactions that have degenerated into bloodbaths in the United States.
In April, a 20-year-old woman was fatally shot in New York State after she mistakenly pulled into the driveway of a private home.
The same month, in Texas, a man opened fire on cheerleaders after one of them tried to open the door of his car, which she had mistaken for his own vehicle. And a black teenager was shot and seriously injured after going to the wrong house in Missouri.