Three children wounded when cops open fire at robbery suspect
HUGO, Okla. (AP) - The mother of three children wounded when Oklahoma police fired at a man in a pickup truck who was suspected of robbing a restaurant says two of her kids suffered head wounds and the third was shot in the face.
"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," Olivia Hill told Sherman, Texas, news station KXII-TV . "My 1-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face."
Investigators didn't release the children's conditions and it wasn't clear where they were taken for treatment. Hill said her 2-year-old child who was also in the truck was not hurt.
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, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brooke Arbeitman said Saturday. 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 and then taken to a Texas jail on a robbery warrant, Arbeitman said.
"What happened between the contact with him and when police fired, we're still trying to put that together," Arbeitman said. "The OSBI is still investigating whether he fired at police and whether he was armed."
She said "it's going to be a few days before we know anything," including whether one or both officers at the scene were involved in the shooting.
Smith is suspected in an April 11 armed robbery at a Pizza Hut in Hugo, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City. 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 says 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.