Police: 1 killed, 3 wounded in Phoenix drive-by

By BRIAN SKOLOFF

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman was killed and three other people wounded Friday in a drive-by shooting in a south Phoenix neighborhood, police said.

Authorities were searching for a dark green Ford Expedition after they say four men in the vehicle pulled up to the home around 2:30 p.m. and someone fired multiple rounds.

The four victims were gathered in the home's front yard just a few feet from the road, Phoenix police Sgt. Steve Martos said.

A woman in her 50s and another in her 20s were transported from the scene in critical condition. Martos said the older woman later died. Another woman and a man in his 20s suffered non-life threatening injuries in the shooting, he said.

None of the victims' names were immediately released.

Martos said it's unclear if any of the victims were related, but some neighbors, who declined to be identified, said two of the victims lived in the home and the two others were visiting. Martos said authorities were investigating a possible gang connection. He did not elaborate.

"These types of incidents historically are targeted but it's too early in the investigation to determine if that's the fact here," he said.

Arizona Department of Public Safety officers were assisting Phoenix police in the search for the suspects.

Yellow crime scene tape blocked off the roads around the single story brick home, its windows covered from the inside with tin foil. At least 20 bullet shell casings were marked with white evidence cards scattered around the sidewalk just in front of the house, which sat across the street from a sign designating the area a drug and gang-free zone.

The shooting occurred just two days after a man opened fired at a Phoenix office building in a dispute over a lawsuit, killing two people and injuring a third. Police said the gunman — Arthur Douglas Harmon, 70 — was found dead early Thursday in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.