Slain North Phila. grocery shop clerk is mourned

Across the street from the North Philadelphia grocery store where Craig Young was working when he was cut down by a stray bullet, relatives and friends remembered him this afternoon as a hard worker, who was well-liked and widely known in the neighborhood.

"I'm 72 years old and I thought I would go before my children," said a tearful Florence Young, his mother, as she and relatives prepared to make funeral arrangements.

Young, 41, was working as a clerk inside the Yasmin Food Market at 23d and Jefferson Streets when a bullet pierced a window and struck him in the left side of the chest at about 5:40 p.m. on Thursday, police said.

At least a half-dozen shots had been exchanged outside the store, police said. There were no suspects, officials said.

Sitting in a silver Chrysler outside the Philadelphia Housing Authority's Norman Blumberg Apartments, where Craig lived, his mother, brother, sister and a niece looked at a makeshift memorial of stuffed animals and candles in front of the store.

"They don't do anything about gun control," said his sister Carolyn Young. "They need gun control. They need to stop all these kids with guns.

Young was the city's 379th homicide victim this year.

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