Alex Arger
11-year-old girl who was left home alone killed in 'brutal' attack
Police in Pasadena, Texas, said the girl was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
LEARN MOREPosted: 9:30 p.m. EDT Aug 23, 2023
A 3-year-old in New York was rushed to an emergency room Tuesday night after being hit by a murder suspect's stray bullet, Suffolk County police said.
Police had come to the child's apartment complex in the Long Island community of Ridge looking for 38-year-old Gary Jones, who was a suspect in the June murder of a woman.
Detectives said they were interviewing Jones' friend, who lived in the complex, when they learned the suspect himself was inside the apartment. After officials ordered everyone out of the apartment, police said Jones appeared from another room and started firing at detectives. That's when three bullets came through the wall of the neighboring apartment where the 3-year-old was, with one striking her just after 8:30 p.m.
The girl underwent surgery after quickly arriving at the hospital and was stable Wednesday, police said.
The girl's father, James Toney, told CBS News the shot went through his daughter's hand and through her stomach.
"No 3-year-old, any child, should experience anything inside their home," Toney said. "She was fresh out of the tub, dripping wet from getting out of the bath. I turned around and my daughter was standing there with blood running."
After an hours-long standoff, in which police say no officers fired their weapons and none were injured, the authorities sent a robot into the apartment, where they discovered Jones dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The weapon recovered at the scene matched the bullets used to kill the woman in June, police said.
