14 people were shot, including 4 juveniles and a mother accompanied by her kids, during 24 hours in Philly

Fourteen people, including four juveniles and a mother riding in a car with her two young children, were shot during a violent 24-hour stretch in Philadelphia as the city’s gun violence crisis continued.

From Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon, one man died from his injuries, and the lives of countless others were upended.

Amid those mourning in the aftermath were residents of a North Philadelphia apartment complex where an early morning shooting left four teenagers, including a pair of best friends, critically injured.

Just before 2 a.m. Thursday, eight teens were hanging out on a stoop behind their homes in Spring Garden Apartments when a shooter walked across the courtyard and opened fire, said Capt. John Walker, head of the Police Department’s nonfatal shooting unit.

Four teens were struck: A 15-year-old boy was shot in the face, while another 15-year-old boy was struck in the leg. A 16-year-old girl who police said was a relative was struck in the legs and face, and a 14-year-old girl — a relative visiting from Georgia — suffered a graze wound to the head.

All were taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where they remained in critical but stable condition, police said. A black revolver was found at the scene, Walker said, but it’s unclear who owned it.

“It looks like family came in from Georgia to visit,” Walker said. “It was a cool night, they were just sitting on the steps of their home and neighbor’s home, talking, when somebody began shooting at them.”

The mothers of the two injured boys, who were best friends and lived in the complex, were distraught Thursday and heading to the hospital to visit their sons.

One of the mothers, who asked not to be identified out of safety and privacy concerns, was inside her home, where she’s lived for eight years, when the gunfire erupted. As the shots continued for what felt like forever, she said, all she could think about was getting to her son.

“Where’s my son? Where’s my son?” she recalled screaming as she ran into the courtyard. He was inside a neighbor’s home, bleeding from his face, she said. Two young girls were on the ground outside. An ambulance was on the way.

As she stood on her front steps Thursday, the stoop next to her covered in shattered glass and a spiderweb-like bullet hole in the neighboring window, she pleaded with Philadelphians to stop the shooting.

“Can y’all help stop the violence?” she asked. “Everybody needs to do better.”

It was a sentiment shared by her neighbors, too. Like Turon Whitepoole, who said he doesn’t feel safe in the Philadelphia Housing Authority-owned complex because of what he called ongoing feuds between nearby groups.

Whitepoole, 25, said he frequently spoke to the two young men who were shot, and he considered one of them like a little brother. Just this week, he said, he spoke with him and shared advice on getting a job — and told him to stay safe. When he woke up to the news of the shooting, he said, all he could do was cry.

“It’s draining. You gotta watch your back 24/7,” he said of living in the city, particularly in his North Philadelphia neighborhood.

“All you hear is sirens.”

In the meantime, Whitepoole said he plans to apply for a gun license for a stronger sense of security.

So far this year, 119 juveniles have been shot in Philadelphia, according to city data — a number higher than in any other year during the same time period since at least 2015, when police began publishing data on shooting victims. Most of those victims were between the ages of 14 and 17, the data show.

In West Philadelphia hours earlier, three people were shot after a gunman opened fire on a car with a young family inside, police said.

A 26-year-old man was leaning into the car, which was stopped on the 5100 block of Wyalusing Avenue, and talking with its passengers when someone walked up and started shooting, Walker said. The man, who investigators believe was the intended target of the shooting, was struck in the leg and is hospitalized in stable condition, he said.

The spray of bullets also struck the car’s passengers. The 37-year-old woman who was driving was shot in the lower back, Walker said, while her friend in the passenger seat — a 26-year-old woman whose two children, ages 2 and 6, were in the backseat — was shot in the back of the head, Walker said.

The 2-year-old was injured by shrapnel or shattered glass, he said, and was treated at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and released. The toddler’s mother remains in critical condition at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, while the driver is in stable condition.

On Thursday, across the street from the scene of the shooting, a fence was covered in messages that spoke of the ongoing violence crisis. One note called for more help from the police. Another said: ”This can’t be life.”

The mother of the 26-year-old man who was injured said her son hobbled two blocks to their apartment after being shot, and collapsed on the ground near their door, screaming for help. The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said her son was doing OK, but added that they hope to move out of the area and away from what feels like incessant shootings.

Neighbor Rose Jenkins, a 19-year resident, also said violence keeps everyone on edge.

“It’s like normal. You can’t come out of your house. Kids can’t play outside,” said Jenkins.

She said the neighborhood needs a greater police presence and residents need solutions. Asking for help, she said, is ”dead end, after dead end, after dead end.”

No motive has been determined and no arrests have been made, Capt. Walker said. Police are working to recover video from the scene and the surrounding area.

Less than two miles south, on Thursday morning slightly before 10, 35-year-old Sharrod Wilson was fatally shot near 50th and Osage Streets in West Philadelphia. His family declined to comment.

Three others were shot in separate incidents across the city overnight, police said: a 44-year-old man in Kensington, a 44-year-old man in Fairhill, and a 17-year-old boy in Southwest Philadelphia. All the victims are stable, and no arrests have been made.

And before police could even determine a motive in most of the overnight violence, a 19-year-old was critically wounded in a shooting Thursday afternoon on the busy subway platform under City Hall.