Family: Mom fired back to protect baby in home invasion
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Police have charged a man with attempted murder after an alleged shootout with an Army National Guard combat medic in the stairwell of her Charlotte, North Carolina home.
The medic's husband says 21-year-old Semantha Bunce was feeding her baby just before 10 a.m. Tuesday when intruders knocked on the front door, rang the doorbell and kicked in the door. Paul Bunce says his wife grabbed her gun and exchanged gunfire with them before they fled.
Semantha Bunce was shot several times and is recovering in a hospital. The baby wasn't injured.
The woman's father-in-law, Paul Bunce Jr., told CBS affiliate WBTV she was forced to defend her family.
"I think it was a shock to the intruders just as it was to her," Bunce said. "Semantha is not out of the woods yet. Everybody is concerned about her."
Neighbors told the station Bunce's husband was at work and her other child, a toddler, was at school when the shooting happened.
Bunce's husband told the station his wife is a fighter.
Local media outlets report that 23-year-old Reco Latur Dawkins Jr. is charged with attempted murder, felony breaking and entering, and conspiracy. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say he turned himself in Sunday morning.
Hollie Ritchie, a family friend who served with Bunce in the National Guard, told WBTV that Bunce is receiving visitors, eating, talking and walking.
Dawkins is being held in jail.