Woman shot while sitting with her children in a parked SUV in Kensington

A 34-year-old woman was shot and wounded as she sat in her parked SUV with her two children Thursday night in Kensington, police said Friday.

The shooting occurred about 11:30 p.m. on the 2000 block of East Monmouth Street. The children were not injured, police said.

The woman, shot once in her side, drove to Temple University Hospital’s Episcopal Campus in Kensington, then was transferred by ambulance to Temple’s main facility on North Broad Street. She was in stable condition, police said.

Sgt. James Dietz of East Detectives said Friday that the woman’s vehicle was shot six times. Police found 21 cartridge casings at the scene, but Dietz said it was not known if they were all from Thursday night’s shooting.

No one had been arrested as of Friday afternoon. Dietz said detectives were investigating whether the woman was a bystander or a target, and how many people fired guns. They are also looking for video from the scene, he said.

The woman’s mother, Valerie Avent, said Friday afternoon that her daughter had been released from the hospital. “She’s OK. She’s home, resting. The kids are fine,” Avent said.

She said her 13-year-old granddaughter, her 8-year-old grandson, and their mother had gone to get food at a Chinese restaurant late Thursday. After her granddaughter picked up the food and got back in the front-passenger seat of the SUV, she said, gunfire rang out.

Her daughter was on the phone with the children’s father when she was shot, said Avent, who was told of the shooting when her granddaughter called her from Episcopal.

Avent said she believes her daughter was a bystander caught in a crossfire.

“This gun violence really has to stop,” she said. “These guys need to be punished” and “need to be locked up and reprimanded.

”People just want to go out and shoot up the neighborhood because of some person. It’s really sad. I never thought it would hit home with me. I’m angry, but I’m blessed at the same time that she’s still here,” Avent said of her daughter. As for her grandchildren, “they‘re shaken up,” she said.

Police held the vehicle as evidence.