ST. LOUIS — Mid-afternoon gunfire rattled a typically quiet St. Louis Hills neighborhood in South City Tuesday.
Neighbors tell 5 On Your Side several men got into a shootout in the parking lot at a CVS pharmacy near the intersection of Hampton and Gravois.
They say the gunmen then sped down Hampton and apparently kept firing at one another.
A few blocks away a worker at a lawnmower repair shop says several employees called 911 after two, bleeding men stormed inside their shop. Police said both were 19 years old. Police said their condition at the hospital was "stable."
"Pretty surprising. We really don't see that out here ever," said Elise Fabbro who lives in nearby Princeton Heights.
Fabbro and her husband shared their concerns.
"We recently came to Missouri like in the last five years ago or so. It just seems like in the time we've gotten here, it's gotten worse," said Isaac McBride.
Officers found one man with a gunshot wound to his eye and right shoulder.
Investigators also say a third man, a 25-year-old, was shot and later arrived at a hospital in a separate car.
On Wednesday, police said the shooting happened inside a car on the parking lot of a nearby Target. They said a preliminary investigation revealed the 25-year-old had met with the other two men at the parking lot to conduct an "unknown transaction." While there, the older man and an acquaintance entered the car with the 19-year-olds, and gunfire was exchanged inside the car.
The car then left the scene, and police later recovered two Glock pistols that had been discarded by the 19-year-old men on Hampton Avenue.
Neighbors said officers found one of the guns outside a nearby locksmith store.
"Something definitely needs to happen to change the trajectory," added a concerned McBride.
St. Louis Hills is well-known for its family-owned restaurants and small businesses.
Records show prior to Tuesday's shooting, there have been three aggravated assaults with a firearm in the South City neighborhood this year.
Last year there was just one.
The investigation was ongoing as of Wednesday afternoon. It wasn't clear to police who was responsible for the shooting.