A three-year-old was struck by a stray bullet while jumping on a couch in New York on Monday night.
Lovely Toney was at home in an apartment complex in the hamlet of Ridge, Long Island, when police arrived looking for murder suspect Gary Jones.
Detectives were in the building to interview Jones’s friend, who is a resident in the same complex, and soon found that the suspect was there at that moment too. They subsequently instructed everyone to leave the apartment, before Jones came out of another room and began shooting.
Of the multiple shots fired, three rounds went through the wall into the apartment next door and a bullet struck Lovely, causing her to bleed heavily.
Describing the harrowing scene to CBS, Lovely’s father James Toney said: “No three-year-old, any child, should experience anything inside their home. She was fresh out of the tub, dripping wet from getting out of the bath.”
“She just jumped on the couch, and she must have had her hand up, because the shot went through the hand, through the stomach,” he added, explaining: “I turned around and my daughter was standing there with blood running.”
Lovely was rushed to hospital and underwent life-saving surgery.
At a press conference Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison released bodycam footage of the incident and praised the “heroism” of apartment residents and the “quick action” of police officers and detectives at the scene, without whom the incident could have resulted in “horrific tragedy.”
Mr Harrison explained that the “timely manoeuvre of getting that three-year-old child into a vehicle, rushing to a hospital” were what saved Lovely’s life.
Referring to the family’s trauma, he said: “I have a grandson who is three years old. I can’t imagine going through that same situation.”
“But I will say thank God for the men and women of this department,” Mr Harrison finished.
Jones was found dead in the neighbouring apartment later, as a result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The murder suspect was wanted by police for allegedly killing his girlfriend in Central Islip in June.
