A 14-year-old girl was playing hide-and-seek with her friends when she was shot in the head by her neighbor in Louisiana, according to authorities.
The shooting on Sunday adds to a recent string of gun attacks across the US aimed at people who were engaged in innocuous activities when they encountered their shooter.
The Louisiana girl and her friends were using parts of the neighbor’s property in Starks – near the state’s border with Texas – to hide as they engaged in a game that children often play to entertain themselves, the local sheriff’s office said.
The neighbor, identified as 58-year-old David V Doyle, reportedly told police he went inside and grabbed his gun after he saw shadows outside his house. He saw several people running from his property and fired his gun at them, deputies said.
Authorities said Doyle wounded the girl, who was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. Investigators concluded Doyle’s targets were children playing around – not people who meant him harm – and booked him with one count of aggravated battery, four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and one count of illegally discharging a firearm.
Doyle on Tuesday remained in custody at the jail of Calcasieu parish – the equivalent of a county in Louisiana. A judge set his bond at $300,000.
People in Louisiana and many other US states who face accusations of shooting someone often try to justify their actions by citing so-called “stand your ground” laws that allow “a person to use deadly force in self-defense in public, even if that force can be safely avoided by retreating or when nonlethal force would suffice”, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Just last month in Missouri, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl mistakenly rang the doorbell at a wrong address while trying to pick up his younger siblings. The homeowner allegedly shot him through the glass door, telling investigators that he was “scared to death” before he was arrested.
Another person who was shot last month under relatively similar circumstances did not survive. Authorities said Kaylin Gillis, 20, was shot to death when she and her friends mistakenly pulled into the wrong driveway in the upstate New York town of Hebron. Before they could correct their mistake, the homeowner allegedly fired two shots, mortally wounding Gillis.
He has been arrested as well.
Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show shootings are the leading killer of children and teens in the nation, surpassing motor vehicle accidents and other causes.
These stark figures illustrate that young Americans in particular are at risk of dying violently for making common mistakes, especially if they live in any of the 30 states with laws that support the stand your ground defense.
Republican lawmakers’ response to the recent shootings has been to double down on laws empowering people to kill in the name of self-defense. The Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin introduced a national stand your ground bill in their respective chambers seeking to create the federal right to use deadly force without having to retreat, which some states do require.
In a statement, Gaetz said: “Every American has the right to defend themselves and their loved ones from an attacker. If someone tries to kill you, you should have the right to return fire and preserve your life. It’s time to reaffirm in law what exists in our constitution and in the hearts of our fellow Americans. We must abolish the legal duty of retreat everywhere.”
Republicans like Gaetz and Mullin have a slim majority in the US House but are in the minority in the Senate.
