4-year-old girl shot while sleeping in pre-dawn, drive-by in Wake County

The Wake County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a pre-dawn shooting that injured a 4-year-old girl as she lay sleeping.

The Apex Police Department and sheriff’s deputies responded to the drive-by shooting into a home on Smith Road, close to Ten Ten Road.

The girl was taken to a hospital with “very serious injuries,” Sheriff Gerald Baker said.

She was sleeping in a front room when “at least about eight” shots were fired into the house from the road, Baker said. Investigators recovered casings from the driveway area. Some of the shots struck cars outside the house.

The girl was shot in the upper body, possibly in the head, Baker said.

The girl’s mother and uncle were in the house, but he said he did not think anyone else was injured.

Those in the house may have gone out and chased the suspect vehicle. Baker said he hopes to release a description of the vehicle later.

The department is still investigating the cause of the shooting, he said.

“When things like this happen, based on our experience, it kind of narrows it down to just a few things,” Baker said.

“Usually someone’s obviously upset with someone in the house or who they thought was in there,” he said. “We could speculate, but I won’t.”

Baker said the shooting underscores his concerns about the number of guns in Wake County.

From January 1 to April, he said his office issued about 15,000 gun permits, he told reporters at the scene.

“That puts thousands and hundreds of thousands of guns in our county, and they sometime end up in the wrong hands, he said. “And so here we are.”

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.