COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. -- The suspect shot by a Colonial Heights police officer after refusing to drop her weapon after leading officer on a chase Sunday is in critical but stable condition at VCU Medical Center.
The shooting happened Sunday near Betty and Joe Hales' home of 42 years where instead of looking for weeds Monday, the couple were keeping an eye out for shattered glass.
"It was pretty scary our normal routine would have been probably about that time been walking around the yard looking at the flowers," Joe Hales told CBS 6 reporter Laura French while walking through his garden Monday.
Those flowers were lined with police tape Sunday after a woman was shot by a Colonial Heights police officer.
Betty Hales stands next to crime scene tape next to her deck.
Police said the suspect refused to drop her weapon after leading them on a chase that ended at the intersection of Yacht Basin Drive and Wildwood Avenue.
The Hales pulled up from church and realized their back yard was now part of a crime scene.
The bullets traveled the length of a football field and traveled across a deck where the family spends most of their time.
One struck the house and the other went through a window and into the room where the couple's elderly mother sleeps.
"I've been singing God's praises. Usually on Sunday, I bathe her in here in the little tub, so that would have been horrible it would have scared both of us to death," Betty Hales said.
Hales said she feels very blessed the bullet did not break a mirror in the woman's room. "I could have been in here getting her dressed that time of day too," she said.
"In retrospect, it's pretty frightening thing to think of what possibly could have happened, but thank goodness it didn't," Joe Hales said.
Virginia State Police have been called in to investigate.
RELATED: Witness: Officer yelled ‘Get on the ground’ twice before opening fire on driver
