The injuries suffered by three children when Oklahoma police fired at a robbery suspect in a pickup truck are non-life-threatening, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said Saturday.
OSBI spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman said the 5-, 4- and 1-year-old children were taken to a Tulsa-area hospital. Their names and conditions were not released.
Olivia Hill told Sherman, Texas, news station KXII-TV that she is the mother of the three and of a fourth child who was not wounded.
“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.”
Hill and the four children were in the pickup with William Devaughn Smith, 21, when two officers approached him and gunfire broke out Friday in Hugo, which is near the Texas state line, Arbeitman said. Smith’s relationship to Hill and the children isn’t clear.
Investigators have not determined what led to the shooting that also wounded Smith, who was treated at a hospital about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away in Paris, Texas, then taken to a Texas jail on an Oklahoma robbery warrant, Arbeitman said.
“What happened between the contact with him and when police fired, we’re still trying to put that together,” the spokeswoman said. “The OSBI is still investigating whether he fired at police and whether he was armed.”
Arbeitman also said it’s unclear whether the officers who opened fire could see the children inside the truck.
Smith is suspected in an April 11 armed robbery at a Pizza Hut in Hugo. He hasn’t been formally charged, and Lamar County, Texas, jail records do not list an attorney to speak on his behalf.
A post on the Hugo police Facebook page said a man entered the back entrance of the restaurant, pressed an object to an employee’s back and demanded money. Police said the worker handed over money and the robber left.
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This story corrects that the man is suspected of robbery.
