Grandmom, girl wounded by wild shots on street
When a group of dim-witted street toughs turn to a gun to solve their dispute, no one is safe - not even an innocent woman and her young granddaughter.
When a group of dim-witted street toughs turn to a gun to solve their dispute, no one is safe - not even an innocent woman and her young granddaughter.
That was the case yesterday afternoon in Port Richmond, where two young men stood at Tulip and Ann streets and argued with two other men who were sitting in a white Pontiac Bonneville, police said.
At about 2:45 p.m., the argument turned violent. Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said that one of the men on the corner produced a handgun and started firing at the Bonneville, which sped off down Tulip Street.
The shooter and his accomplice fled. It was unclear if anyone in the Bonneville was wounded.
Two of the errant bullets hit a 2-year-old girl in the right thigh as she walked down Tulip Street with her grandmother, Vanore said. The 38-year-old grandmother, who wasn't identified, was wounded once in the foot.
Investigators from East Detectives said last night that the girl was listed in stable condition at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.
The grandmother was also in stable condition at Temple University Hospital, where she was to undergo surgery to remove a bullet from her foot.
"They were both just innocent bystanders," Vanore said.
Investigators said that the Crown Victoria was an old, resold police car that still had a teardrop-shaped spotlight on the driver's side.
In the neighborhood yesterday, residents scrambled to explain the yellow crime-scene tape to confused students who streamed out of Jones Middle School, across the street from the shooting, shortly after 3 p.m.
"Whoever shot that woman and the little girl should burn in hell," said neighbor Jessica Tenney, 18. Nina Thomas, 49, of nearby Agate Street, said that Jesse Calloway, a medic who lives in the neighborhood, had come to the young girl's rescue.
"He ran over and put pressure and stopped the bleeding," said Thomas. *
