'Too many kids'

They wanted ice cream on South Street.

They ended up praying they'd get out alive.

Patrice DeLisser, 40, of Worcester, Montgomery County, was taking her cousin, who had just relocated to the area from Connecticut, and her own three children - ages 7, 9 and 14 - to South Street so she could show off the "eclectic" neighborhood.

DeLisser was looking for a place to park about 10 p.m. when she pulled onto South Street from 12th and came upon a mass of teens blocking the roadway.

"I commented to my cousin something is wrong here, it's too many kids," she said. "They were standing around and looking and waiting and then all of a sudden it was like the running of the bulls. Kids were running and screaming, 'Someone has gun.'

"I turned to my right and saw someone walking down the middle of the street with a gun in his belt. It was like the OK Corral. The handle and trigger were sticking out, the barrel was in his pants. He looked about 16 or 17. He was just walking. They were running away from him . . .

"My little one was screaming and crying in the car 'I don't want to die.' "

DeLisser was inching along South Street, trying to reach a street to turn on but "there was no moving, their bodies were everywhere."

Then the mass of teens came running from the other direction, screaming that someone else had a gun, leaving DeLisser's car possibly sandwiched between two armed teens.

"They're running for their lives," she said. "People were climbing over my car. My kids were just screaming, yelling in the back seat."

"My one daughter, she is 14, she is praying in the back seat. All I hear is 'Jesus, please save us, please save us.'"

DeLisser finally managed to turn onto 11th Street, and alerted a nearby police officer of the teen she saw with the gun.

The horrifying experience has DeLisser thinking twice about returning to South Street.

"I'm thinking I'm giving her a tour of everything lit and looking so nice down there I had no idea this is what we were running into . . .

"My kids will not want to go back down there. I'll listen first to see if I venture down there again."