4 males shot after Logan block party

It was a birthday block party with plenty of tunes and eats to go around.

The festivities started at 8 a.m. in Logan, on Rockland Street between 7th and 8th, which had been roped off - ironically, it would later turn out - with yellow crime-scene tape. After 12 hours of dancing and celebrating on a beautiful September Sunday, the party ended at 8:30 p.m.

Less than two hours later, at 10:20 p.m., while a group of neighbors was still sweeping up from the party, four men from the neighborhood were shot up by an unknown assailant who had his face covered with a dark shirt.

All the male victims - none was identified by police - were shot in one of their legs, police said. Their ages are 15, 17, 20 and 48, cops said.

When the shots rang out, "everybody scattered, everybody left," said block captain Dawn Rykard.

About 15 patrol cars from the 35th District were already in the area, attempting to break up a heated argument among eight teenage girls at the corner of 8th and Rockland, said Rykard, whose daughter and niece were among the participants.

A man who said that he was watching the women argue said that he "heard four shots" and rushed to his car and saw the 48-year-old victim lying on the sidewalk near Rockland and Franklin streets. The man said that he and his friend, the victim's relative, drove the the man to Albert Einstein Medical Center, while they were pursued by police and later were treated "like we were suspects," he said.

The female in-fighting had nothing to do with the shooting, he said.