City worker shot at housing unit

A Philadelphia Housing Authority carpenter was shot once in the back of his head yesterday as he prepared to work at a low-rise public housing unit in North Philadelphia.

Rodney Barnes, 46, of Elkins Park, had just removed tools, paperwork, and sneakers from his red pickup truck parked at 41 W. Norris St. when a bullet came from close range, said Richard A. Zappile, chief of the authority's Police Department.

"He was here on a legitimate assignment. He was here to fix a toilet. We at PHA are all brokenhearted," Zappile said.

Barnes, a PHA employee for six months, underwent emergency surgery at Temple University Hospital, Zappile said. His wife, cousins, and aunts gathered at the hospital.

The surgery was over at 5 p.m., and Barnes "does have a chance to survive," said Mark Durkalec, business representative for the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters. Barnes, a father, was one of the union's 13,000 members.

He was still in critical condition late last night, police said.

Philadelphia police homicide officials began a criminal investigation on the sun-baked street of townhouses. Detectives examined a hole in the back window of a gray truck that union members said belonged to Barnes' work partner.

No suspects were in custody late yesterday, and no motive had been determined, Police Sgt. Timothy Cooney said. He would not specify where the bullet had come from or what distance it had traveled.

Neighbors and members of the carpenters union said they believed the shooting might be a case of mistaken identity: In a shooting in the neighborhood Friday, the person responsible allegedly drove a red pickup.

Union members said they believed whoever had fired at Barnes had done so from a corner at 23d and Norris Streets, thinking he was the assailant in the Friday shooting.

"They saw him get out of the red truck. They shot him for no reason. Police impounded the red truck Friday. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Durkalec said. Police would not comment on the reprisal theory.

Angela Jones, who has daughters ages 10, 12, and 17, sat on her porch around the corner from the crime scene and said, "Lives are being cut short for what - nonsense."

Jones, a 10-year resident, said she believed a town watch and surveillance cameras might make the area safer.

In a shooting at a PHA complex on Feb. 17, 2008, an assailant knocked on the security booth at Queen Lane Apartments in Germantown, then fired one shot with an SKS rifle at the officer inside.

The officer survived; the suspect was found guilty and is serving a prison sentence.