Four people wounded, two critically, in Philadelphia shooting

» UPDATE: 19-year-old bystander Yaniyah Foster dies

Four people were wounded — two critically, including a 19-year-old female bystander — in a hail of gunfire that rocked a North Philadelphia neighborhood Wednesday afternoon, police said.

Just before 3:40 p.m., gunfire erupted from the corner of 11th and West Thompson Streets, police said. More than 20 shots were fired, said Capt. Frank Banford, commanding officer of the Central Detective Division.

One of the bullets struck a woman who had been sitting on the front steps of her home in the 1000 block of Thompson, Banford said. She was struck in the head by a stray bullet, he added.

Police responding to the scene rushed the woman, whose name was not released, to Temple University Hospital, where she was reported in critical condition.

Banford said the gunfire began after two armed men walked south on 11th Street, turned east on Thompson and began shooting toward a group of men.

A 25-year-old man was shot in the head while another 25-year-old man was shot in the right arm, police said. A 23-year-old man was shot in the left leg. All three were taken to Temple in private vehicles.

The man with the head wound was listed in critical condition, and the two others were in stable condition. Their names were withheld.

Police secured three of the private vehicles outside the Temple emergency department and found guns in two of the cars.

St. Malachy Catholic School is at the intersection and was placed on lockdown. No students were hurt and the lockdown was later lifted.

Shell casings littered the crime scene and a single Ugg boot in the middle of the street was recovered by police as evidence. Several parked cars were struck by bullets.

Police did not release an immediate motive for the shootings or details about who was targeted by the gunmen, and it was unclear whether the wounded men were from the neighborhood.

Neighbors hugged one another and cried.

Sandy Ross, 46, said her 10-year-old son, who attends St. Malachy, had come home from school a short while earlier when the shooting began and the two dropped to the floor to take cover.

Ross said the woman who was shot would regularly hang out on her steps with friends.

“We all used to sit on our porches,” she said.

Afterward, she said she was reliving the day her 25-year-old son Virgil was also shot and killed on the corner last May. A flier with Virgil’s photo asking the public for help identifying his killer was taped to a nearby pole. Ross stood beneath it as police removed the crime tape, remembering her son and understanding the pain of the victims’ families.

“I feel for that girl’s mother. I understand her pain,” she said as she wiped away tears. “You gotta live here and always be reminded that your family member died here.”

Carolyn Nelson, who lives a few doors down from the stoop where the woman was shot, said that she has never heard gunfire erupt like that before in her 29 years on the street. Nelson’s car mirror was shattered from a bullet.

“I’m ready to move,” she said. “This is just getting crazy.”

City Council President Darrell L. Clarke was at the scene. He said that the city needed to invest in better technology to make sure these crimes are solved.

“If [children] can’t get to school, there’s clearly a problem," he told reporters. “We’ve got to make these streets safe.”

Police said surveillance video from the school captured the shooting and detectives would try to identify the suspects from the recordings.