Two children are in recovery after a horrific Halloween incident sent them to the hospital with gunshot wounds in an event that is leaving one mother completely blindsided.
Dominique Wise let her 14-year-old daughter Makiya Williams take her 5-year-old brother Mael Howel out trick-or-treating last night, hoping to score some delicious candy and have fun dressing up in costumes.
However, later that night Wise would receive a call that not one, but both of her kids had been caught in the crossfire of a gun fight and were being treated for gunshot wounds.
It was only 6:20 pm on a block in the neighborhood called Olney, when they got stuck between two gunmen firing wildly at each other. The two kids reportedly had in the upwards of six shots each coming from the two different guns.
Makiya was grazed twice by the bullets, but Mael was struck in the leg. As scared as she was, Makiya was more afraid for her brother than herself.
"I was just focused on getting my little brother. I was just focused on getting him to safety and making sure he was alright," she said after she was discharged from the hospital.
Their mother is understandably stunned by the night's incident. "It makes no sense to send your children out to trick-or-treat and then you get a phone call that not one but two of your children were shot," she said.
One of the witnesses in the neighborhood spoke with ABC News and claimed it sounded like "fireworks."
"It sounded like fireworks at first and that's why I looked out the window; that's when I started seeing the fire coming out of the guns," Brian Carlin said. "I was like 'what the hell is going on?' It's Halloween. There are kids out here."
With young Mael's Halloween candy dumped out beside the casings, the Chief Inspector of the Philidelphia Police Scott Small revealed it was a close call. "It appears that at least one of the shooters was standing in very close proximity to where these children were," he said.
Mael is still in the hospital, and may require surgery to remove the bullet from his leg, but his mom is relieved that the outcome wasn't worse.
"I just want to thank God because it could have been a lot worse. I know there's a lot of mothers that don't see their children; as hard as this was, I just thank God it was kind of minor as far as them living," she said.
