Girl Scout hit by bullet on her way to sell cookies

INDIANAPOLIS - A nine-year-old Indianapolis girl wounded by gunfire as she was heading off to her weekly Girl Scouts meeting won't be able to sell cookies door-to-door this year, but she's racking up sales in an online cookie drive.

Sinai Miller was standing outside her family's apartment Tuesday afternoon, eager to pick up her boxes of Girl Scout cookies to sell, when gunshots rang out. Her mother, 29-year-old Shanita Miller, raced outside and found blood gushing from her eldest daughter's left calf.

Doctors treated Sinai's leg wound and sent her home. On Thursday, she sat teary-eyed and wordless on a living room couch, swaddled in a pink and purple heart-covered blanket, her left leg propped up on a pillow.

While Sinai is on the mend, her mother said the girl is traumatized, in pain and crushed that her plans for selling cookies have been sidetracked.

"She woke up early that morning, right before she went to school, and said,'Mommy, today's Girl Scouts. We're getting our cookies today!' And I told her, 'Wonderful, but we'll do that this afternoon,'" Miller said.

Although Sinai won't be able to go door-to-door anytime soon, she's still selling cookies. An aunt has promised to buy 20 boxes from her, and Sinai's teacher at Fox Hill Elementary has also promised to buy some. Also, Girls Scouts of Central Indiana has launched an online cookie drive called "Cookies for Sinai" that spokeswoman Deana Potterf said has generated significant sales.

"Sinai's never been outside of Indianapolis, and so she's really excited about maybe being able to take her whole troop of about 15 Girl Scouts somewhere, on a trip," Potterf said.

Police are still looking for who pulled the trigger, CBS News Indianapolis affiliate WTTV reported. Witnesses told them someone driving a blue Ford Expedition fired shots in the direction of men standing near an apartment building.

Sinai and her 8-year-old sister Erica were standing on their front porch, waiting for their mom to bundle up another sibling for the trip to the Scouts meeting. One bullet hit Sinai in the leg and another hit the apartment building door.

Shanita Miller's boyfriend, 31-year-old Mark Chander, said he and his family have no idea who would target them.

"When (Sinai) got home from the hospital, she asked me, 'Why did this happen to me? Did I do something wrong?' I didn't have answer for her because she didn't do anything wrong," he said.

"She needs all the hugs, all the kisses, all the sweet names that you can say to her -- and all the comfort," he said. "Whoever did this needs to come forward. They hit an innocent child and they should feel some guilt."