The Strawberry Mansion shooting that wounded 7 was a targeted attack that hit bystanders — including a 2-year-old and her mother
Surveillance footage shows the three black-clad masked shooters firing at the teenagers, as bystanders flee stray bullets.
The shooting that wounded seven people Thursday evening in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood appeared to be a targeted attack between three shooters and a group of teenagers — with stray bullets injuring a 2-year-old girl and her mother — police said Friday. The gunmen remain at large.
It occurred shortly before 6 p.m. as the group of four teens rounded the corner of 31st and Norris Streets, in front of a beer distributor and half a block from James G. Blaine School.
Surveillance footage shows that as the group turned the corner, three black-clad masked shooters hopped out of a silver Hyundai parked in front of the beer shop and began to shoot at the teenagers using at least one gun with an extended clip — peppering the street with gunfire.
» READ MORE: 7 people, including a 2-year-old girl and 5 teenagers, were shot in Strawberry Mansion
Janet Hou, co-owner of Norris Beverages, said she heard gunshots outside her shop, and watched from her live surveillance camera as chaos erupted on the corner, with bystanders seen scattering and fleeing from the bullets.
Police said they found nearly 30 spent shell casings at the scene.
In the surveillance video, a young woman who had walked past the Hyundai seconds before sprints down 31st Street. Another woman pushing a stroller and walking with a child across the street is seen running after the gunmen appear, then suddenly limping, apparently hit by a stray shot. The woman limps away, still pushing the stroller, with the child running by her side.
Police said Friday they are still searching for three shooters and a gray, four-door Hyundai Elantra, possibly a model from 2011 to 2016, with an unknown Pennsylvania license plate. Police said it wasn’t immediately clear why the group of teens was targeted.
The victims Thursday included a 2-year-old girl shot in her thigh; a 13-year-old boy shot in his hand; a 16-year-old boy shot in his arm and leg; another 16-year-old boy shot in his arm; a 17-year-old boy with a graze wound to his thigh; and a 31-year-old woman shot twice in the left leg. Those six were reported in stable condition, police said.
A 15-year-old boy shot twice in the chest and once on the right side of his body was reported in critical condition at Temple University Hospital, police said.
Hou, who has co-owned the store in Strawberry Mansion for 13 years, said she was tired of the “senseless” violence that plagues the city, which she and her husband have dealt with firsthand. Their store had been robbed several times, Hou said.
In one instance, a robber pointed a gun at her husband, she said.
”We have to watch our back every single day,” Hou said. “We’re supposed to be able to come out, do what we want to do, and enjoy life the way it is.”
Thursday’s shooting occurred amid mounting concerns over gun violence in the city, and marked the second time teenagers were injured by gunfire in a week. On Tuesday, a 13-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy were injured in a shooting as they walked home from school in North Philadelphia — two blocks from where Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald was fatally shot last weekend.
Thursday’s shooting also marks the third time this year that at least four victims were struck by gunfire on the same block in one day.
On the 7300 block of Rowland Street on Jan. 9, three men were killed and one was wounded by gunfire. In another multiple-victim shooting, on Jan. 28, four men survived after being shot on the 1400 block of Kerper Street, police records show.
Last year, there were at least 25 instances of shootings in which at least four people were struck. That includes the mass shooting at Third and South Streets in June, in which three people were killed and 11 wounded. Three of the wounded were juveniles.
Twenty-six children under the age of 18 have been shot in Philadelphia this year, and three teens have died.
Hou, 48, said Friday she wished that the guns would disappear from the streets, especially as the violence affects young children.
The unusually warm February weather on Thursday brought people young and old outside to enjoy the day, she said, and put them at risk when the shooting began.
”I just hope that this kind of thing can end soon,” she said. “Because kids are growing and not even having the chance to live their life.”
Staff writer Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.