9-year-old shot while selling Girl Scout cookies

Michael Anthony Adams and Robert King | The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS — A 9-year-old selling Girl Scout cookies in Indianapolis was shot and wounded Tuesday, police say.

Sinai Miller was with her two younger sisters near their home when a car passed by and fired shots. One of the bullets hit her in the leg. She was initially hospitalized in stable condition, and later returned home.

Sinai's family said she has been asking: "What did I do wrong?"

"They walked outside the door, and they didn't even get to make it across the lot and then the shots start ringing out," Mark Chandler, boyfriend of the girl's mother, told WXIN-TV.

Indianapolis police officers were dispatched to the Retreat Cooperative apartments just after 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Investigators on the scene said witnesses reported seeing a person's arm sticking out the window of an SUV and firing a gun indiscriminately.

There were children playing outside near where witnesses said the gun was fired, and police believe that is when the girl was struck by a stray bullet.

After the shots were fired, the SUV took off, police said.

Officer Christopher Wilburn, a spokesman for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said detectives do not think the shot was meant for the child.

Said Deborah Hearn Smith, CEO of Girl Scouts of Central Indiana: "We cannot complete our mission to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place when they are afraid to play in their own neighborhoods."

Police were looking for a blue Ford Expedition, WXIN said.