Child who was shot in her head is in critical condition

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) — The 3-year-old who was shot in her head in Shreveport remains hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

She’s being treated at Ochsner LSU Health, a Shreveport hospital that is a Level I trauma center.

That’s what Police Chief Ben Raymond told KSLA News 12′s Jeff Ferrell on Thursday afternoon, adding that his detectives are finding it difficult to sort out exactly how the child was shot.

That’s because multiple eyewitnesses have given investigators varying accounts of what transpired Wednesday night in the house in the 700 block of Bernice Circle, Raymond said.

Caddo 911 dispatch records indicate first responders were summoned to a shooting and a medical emergency at that address at 9:27 p.m. Wednesday.

No arrest has been made. Nor is anyone being questioned about the shooting at this time, the police chief said.

Mayor Adrian Perkins has described the case as a domestic situation but has not elaborated on that statement.

Some neighbors of the Bernice Circle residence suspect that the shooting inside that house might have been an accident.

“It’s negligent for whoever to have a gun in the house,” said Stan Waites, a resident of Oxford Court Apartments. “And I’ll be feeling really sad and just keep them in my prayers.”

Meantime, the Police Department held the grand opening Thursday afternoon for its new community police hub at an apartment complex almost six miles north of Bernice Circle.

The hub at Canaan Village, located in the 1900 block of Patzman Street, is an extension of the Police Department’s community-oriented policing division and is funded by a U.S. Justice Department grant supported by the nation’s community-based crime reduction program.

The goal is to help communities “build trust and support law enforcement agencies that work with communities by integrating enforcement strategies into community-based crime reduction efforts and using this information to understand and target the issues,” says a statement about the program.

The crime-fighting strategy “... leverages community knowledge and expertise by focusing enforcement efforts on neighborhoods where crime is concentrated and/or crime ‘hot spots’.”