Youngsters wounded by stray shots

Only white, chalk circles outlining tiny blood spatters remained yesterday on the steps where Joseph Brown, 8, and his 2-year-old brother, Deshawn, had played Saturday afternoon.

The two - bystanders as innocent as they come - were hit by stray gunfire while they sat on the steps of their family's Southwest Philadelphia home at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Deshawn Brown was struck once in the groin and taken to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in critical condition, though his condition was upgraded to stable yesterday, police said.

His brother was shot twice in the buttocks and listed in stable condition at CHOP, police said.

The intended target of the shooting, a 19-year-old man who is known to police, was followed into City Paging and Communications, a cell-phone and beeper store, by an unknown man believed to be between 19 and 25, Southwest Detectives' Lt. John Walker said.

The 19-year-old, who was identified by police as Marquis Westley, paid his cell-phone bill and when he left the store, on Woodland Avenue near 67th Street, the gunman followed him out and opened fire, hitting him in the lower back and legs, police said.

While police believe the gunman got his intended target, the shooter also changed the lives of two innocent children forever.

"These knuckleheads decide they want to settle some type of feud in broad daylight in an area that should be held for the sanctity of children," Walker said. "Instead, there are bullets flying all over the place over a feud between two young adults."

Of the six shots the gunman fired, half made their way into the young Brown brothers, whose identities were confirmed yesterday by neighbors.

Westley was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in critical condition but was upgraded to stable yesterday, according to police. Investigators planned to interview him last night.

Walker said that the store has inside and outside surveillance footage but that it is "old VHS technology" and police were in the process of clearing up the pictures.

The shooter, who fled westbound on 67th Street from Woodland, is described as a black male between 19 and 25, with a dark complexion. He was wearing a dark hoodie and dark sweatpants.

Anyone with information on the case is urged to call the Philadelphia Police at 215-686-8477.