Three children helping their mother operate a fruit stand were killed when a stolen SUV plowed into a small crowd on a Philadelphia street corner.
Police Lt. John Stanford said 10-year-old Thomas Reed was pronounced dead on the scene Friday, while 7-year-old Terrence Moore and 15-year-old Keiearra Williams were pronounced dead at the hospital.
They were the children of 34-year-old Keisha Williams, who remained in critical condition Saturday, according to Giselle Zayon of Temple University Hospital.
“They were sweet,” Ursula Jackson of North Philadelphia told CNN affiliate KYW. “They were beautiful, they were beautiful little kids.”
According to Philadelphia police, two men — one black, one Hispanic — carjacked a real estate agent who was showing a house and pushed her into the backseat of her Toyota SUV.
The men drove around Philadelphia at high speeds while holding the woman — whose name has not been released — at gunpoint. Stanford said she is in critical but stable condition, and that she has been able to communicate with authorities.
When the SUV rounded a corner at Germantown and Allegheny avenues, it ran into a small crowd on the corner, including the fruit stand where the family — who lived just around the corner on West Hilton St — was raising money for their church. Another woman helping at the fruit stand was hospitalized as well. On Saturday, police had not released her name or her condition.
The SUV wrecked in a wooded area and the two men ran away.
The father of the 7-year-old boy urged the suspects to surrender to authorities.
“Taking innocent peoples’ lives. That was my son,” he told KYW. “You took him away from me. Turn yourself in.”
A reward of $110,000 has been offered for information leading to their arrest.
Stanford said Saturday the homicide unit was “following up on a number of tips and leads but (it had) nothing concrete at this time.”