9 injured in San Francisco's Mission District shooting
SAN FRANCISCO - Nine people were shot and injured in San Francisco's Mission District Friday night at a community block party, police say. Witnesses described it as a drive-by shooting.
San Francisco police responded to the gunfire at 9:07 p.m. and located multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Police considered it an isolated and targeted incident.
The victims were taken to the hospital, according to police, and all are expected to survive.
Police later gave the ages of the victims, saying they range from 19 to 35 with one victim of an unknown age. Most of the victims are in their twenties. The victims were said to have, "varying degree of injuries from non-life threatening to life-threatening," according to SFPD Investigations Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani.
Witness describes drive-by shooting in San Francisco's Mission District, multiple victims wounded
Multiple victims were shot in San Francisco's Mission District Friday night. Witnesses describe it as a drive-by shooting. San Francisco police are asking residents to avoid the area of 24th Street and Treat Avenue where streets are blocked off as police investigate.
Santiago Lerma, a legislative aide for Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission District, said one victim is undergoing surgery. He said four people were being treated for minor injuries. Lerma said he heard the gunshots and saw ambulances arriving.
"I was about 10 feet away with my 3-month-old son about an hour before this happened. This is an outlier. This is a very safe neighborhood generally," Lerma said. He said he walks around the area frequently with his family. "So do many other people, so we're very concerned about this incident. We want there to be a resolution."
Information from SFPD is preliminary. Police are continuing to gather evidence from the shooting.
One witness said she was there when the shooting happened. Ariana Blea told us the neighborhood party had families, food and celebrating. She described the incident as a drive-by shooting and that someone from a vehicle opened fire. She said she and her 13-year-old nephew ran down the block to get away from the shooting. She said one of her friends was hit by gunfire.
"If anyone was doing that who's watching this right now…we got kids there, our family, people we love and even a person I know got shot. I don't know where they got shot, but they got shot and they got sent to the hospital. You know, you can't do that when kids are around."
Blea said she lives in the area. She said she looked down at people bleeding on the ground. One person was holding their bloody head.
While emergency crews are on hand, officials advised to avoid the area and to expect traffic delays and to consider other routes.
This is in a mixed residential area with many bars and businesses.
No suspect information or vehicle description was available.
A Muni bus that runs through the area had to be re-routed.
Police asked anyone with information, video, or pictures of the shooting to contact them. SFPD said they would not release any new information until late morning on Saturday.