Boy, 8, in stable condition after shooting

Philadelphia police were investigating the murky circumstances of a shooting that left an 8-year-old boy wounded Monday afternoon.

The boy reportedly was shot in the left shoulder sometime around 3:30 p.m. or earlier and was taken by private automobile to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, where he was listed in stable condition, said Chief Inspector Scott Small. The bullet remained lodged in the boy's shoulder. Police were not notified until after 5 p.m., Small said.

The boy supposedly was riding his bike in the 2500 block of North Orianna Street when he was shot, but police could not find any crime-scene evidence there, Small said. "There's no bicycle. There's no blood. There's nothing," Small said.

Family members gave conflicting accounts, so the police secured search warrants for the boy's family's house on Orianna Street and a relative's house in the 2600 block of North Palethorpe Street, Small said. - Robert Moran