'Let This Be A Catalyst': Family, Friends Call For End To Senseless Violence After 19-Year-Old Yaniyah Foster Killed In Quadruple Shooting
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Death does not discriminate. It's the sad realization family and friends of a young woman shot and killed on her stoop in a quadruple shooting are coming to grips with.
Yaniyah Foster's friends say she had a bright smile and had plans to start her own clothing business. Now her family is begging for the senseless violence to stop.
"Sometimes the clouds hang low," one woman sang.
But on this clear, cold evening, what hung over the crowd of more than 100 people were memories of a young woman shot and killed while sitting on a stoop.
Nineteen-year-old Yaniyah Foster, known by loved ones as Niyah, died in a quadruple shooting on Wednesday afternoon.
Police say she was sitting with her friends when multiple people ran up to them and fired more than two dozen shots.
On Thursday night, her mother's face was pained in grief as Foster's uncle addressed the young men and women gathered to remember his niece.
"Let this be a catalyst. Let this be a starting point for ending the violence in this neighborhood," he said. "Whatever is going on, whoever doesn't like whomever, whatever doesn't like whatever -- it needs to stop because it's a death thing. It does not discriminate."
Foster's friends took her uncle's message to heart.
"You cannot even sit on your steps without being safe, coming home from schools you cannot be safe. It's too much going on, too much going on. The world needs to change, the community needs to change," friend Safiyah Washington said.
Police have made two arrests in the quadruple shooting. They have not released a possible motive.