Police Confront Robbery Suspect in Texas, Shoot Three Children

Three children, aged five, four and one years old, were taken to a Tulsa, Okla.-area hospital after a police officer fired at a robbery suspect in a pickup truck.

Their injuries are considered non-life-threatening, according to WKRG.

Though authorities did not immediately release the ages or conditions of the children, Olivia Hill told Texas news station KXII-TV that three of her four children were wounded, while her two-year-old child was left unharmed.

“My 4-year-old daughter was shot in the head, and she has a bullet in her brain, and my 5-year-old has a skull fracture,” Hill said. “My 1-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face. My 2-year-old wasn’t touched with any bullets.”

According to authorities, it is unclear if police could see the children when they began firing. Smith is suspected in a Pizza Hut robbery earlier this month, though he has yet to be formally charged. According to the Hugo Police Facebook page, a suspect entered the back of the eatery, pressed an object to the back of an employee and demanded cash, then left with an undisclosed amount of money.

Hill and her children were in a pickup truck with 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith in Hugo, Tex. when two officers approached. Smith’s relationship to Hill remains unclear, and he was treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital 30 miles away before being taken into custody for a robbery warrant in Oklahoma.

“What happened between the contact with him and when police fired, we’re still trying to put that together,” said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations spokesperson Brook Arbeitman. “The OSBI is still investigating whether he fired at police and whether he was armed.”