Nine-Year-Old Boy Grazed In Head By Bullet In Tacony
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Police are investigating after a nine-year-old boy was grazed in the head by a bullet in Philadelphia's Tacony neighborhood Tuesday afternoon.
It happened around 3:20 p.m. at the intersection of Torresdale Avenue and Knorr Street.
The nine-year-old boy was leaving the library with his family in Tacony when suddenly he was shot in the head.
"This city is crazy. I mean like when a little innocent child can't cross the street or play outside, he gets shot in the head just minding his business," neighbor James Toomer said.
Eyewitnesses describe hearing two gunshots, both fired across a crowded intersection in broad daylight as a mother was walking with her four-year-old child and nine-year-old son.
"She was putting her four-year-old in the car when shots rang out on the corner," Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum of Philadelphia Police said.
One bullet grazed the top of the nine-year-old's head. Astonished eyewitnesses rushed to the boy's aid.
The boy was bleeding and crying, his panicked mom yelling for help.
"The last words he said to me before EMS came was 'Sir please don't let me die.' And I told him 'Baby boy you're not going to die, you're going to make it,'" neighbor Augustine Rosado said.
Police believe the shooter was aiming for another group of men who were behind the nine-year-old.
The boy was rushed to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children with a graze wound to the top of his head.
Eyewitnesses say the gunshots erupted with no warning at the intersection of Torresdale Avenue and Knorr Street.
Detectives are trying to piece together what led up to the shooting as they try to track down the suspect.
"While we were in the store we heard pow, pow. We came out and we saw the little kid running across the street and he was screaming. The next thing we know they say, 'Oh, he's shot, he's shot,'" Toomer said.
The boy was treated and released from the hospital and is now recovering at home.
So far, no arrests have been made.
Anyone with information is asked to call police.
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