OKLAHOMA POLICE SHOOTING ENDS IN TRAGIC COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Mom Says 3 Kids Got Head or Face Wounds in Police Shooting

Associated Press
April 27, 2019

HUGO, Okla. -- 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."

She said her 2-year-old child was not hurt.

Hill and the four children were in the truck with William Devaughn Smith, 21, when 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. 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 Saturday.

"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 how many officers 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.

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.