One man sustained life-threating injuries in a shooting that took place Tuesday at 7:25 p.m. at the intersection of 16th and Shotwell streets, according to witnesses.
The man was conscious immediately following the incident, asking bystanders to call 911 and screaming that he had been shot in the back.
Witnesses said the victim, who was driving a green Saturn sedan and appeared to be in his mid-20s to early 30s, was on Shotwell and heading south across 16th Street when six to eight gunshots erupted from another car driving west on 16th Street. After the gunfire hit the victim in his car, they said, he reversed back into Shotwell from the middle of the intersection.
Meanwhile, the suspect’s car drove off at a normal speed continuing west on 16th Street, they said.
“It was so fast,” said a woman named Faith.
She approached the victim who was sitting in the car and asked if he was okay. She noticed that he had he had a bullet wound on the left side of his back, near his rib cage. “It was just a dot,” she said. “But when he lifted his shirt there was more blood.”
She also remembers him saying that he did not know who shot him.
“He seemed surprised that he was shot,” said Eileen Shields, who was walking on 16th Street during the incident. “Like (he) was trying to make as much sense of it as we were.”
At around 7:30 p.m., bystanders had converged on the man’s car, trying to help the victim, some yelling “turn off the car!” and “Sit up!”
Shortly afterward, around eight police cars and an ambulance converged on the scene. The man was taken to the hospital.