A Louisiana man is facing felony assault charges after police said Tuesday that he shot a 14-year-old girl who was playing hide-and-seek on his property.
David Doyle, 58, was charged with aggravated battery, four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, and illegal discharge of a firearm, the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office said in a press release. Officials said the incident occurred this past Sunday in Starks, a small town near the Texas state line.
The girl was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
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According to the sheriff's office, police responded to Doyle's home following a report of shots fired, and they found the 14-year-old with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. Detectives then arrived and learned that she had been playing hide-and-seek on Doyle's property.
When detectives spoke with Doyle, he allegedly told them he had "observed shadows outside of his home, at which point he went inside and received his firearm." Doyle then admitted to going back outside to see people running away from his property, police said, at which point he began shooting at them and "unknowingly hit the girl."
The area where the shooting happened is a dead-end road where only Doyle and the victim's family live, KPLC-TV reported.
Doyle remains in police custody with bond set at $300,000, according to The Washington Post.
The shooting is the latest in a series of sometimes-deadly incidents spurred by seemingly trivial events. This includes a pair of teenage cheerleaders who were critically injured in Texas after accidentally entering the wrong car, as well as a New York woman, Kaylin Gillis, who was shot and killed while turning around in a stranger's driveway. There was also the case of Ralph Yarl, a Kansas City man who was shot in the head after mistakenly wringing the wrong doorbell.
