A North Carolina man who was critically wounded when his neighbor opened fire after a basketball rolled over into his yard says the now-arrested suspect made a racial comment during the incident, the Gaston Gazette reported.
Jamie White was hospitalized after a bullet pierced his lung and liver as he desperately tried to protect his 6-year-old daughter Kinsley. He said the suspect, who is Black, yelled, “I don’t even like white people" during the attack.
“I was worried about my babies,” White told the Gaston Gazette on Monday. “I was already hit. I was losing breath. I was on fire. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it.”
Robert Louis Singletary, 24, turned himself into authorities in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday after two days on the run. Singletary allegedly opened fire on Kinsley and her parents after he became enraged over a basketball rolling into his yard.
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“He comes back out the door running, firing at that man and his kids,” White said, referring to another neighbor whom Singletary initially targeted.
White said that when he asked Singletary to stop shooting, he replied, "You white? I don’t even like white people. I’m going to shoot your a**." He said Singletary then dropped his gun, picked up another, and opened fire at him and his daughter.
“He fires three shots. He hasn’t hit nobody yet. So I turn around and look … My daughter’s right in front of me. I look and see, and he’s pointing straight at my daughter,” White said.
“And I just run towards my daughter … and that’s when he got me,” he said.
Kinsley was hit by shrapnel, which lodged in her cheek. White said Singletary fired three more times, but missed.
As the New York Post points out, Singletary has been arrested twice for attacking someone with a dangerous weapon in the last seven years.
“None of this would have happened if the judicial system would have done their job,” White said, referring to Singletary's release on an unsecured bond after the alleged assault.