Gunshots rang out in a St. Paul neighborhood, killing a 19-year-old man, shortly after 9 a.m. Friday — not long after parents put children on school buses in the area.

People mourned the loss of a young life in the Summit-University area and said it was senseless, no matter the circumstances.

Neighbors also expressed concern and frustration about other recent instances of gunfire at the same place where Friday’s homicide happened, at Carroll Avenue and Avon Street: Police responded to reports of shots fired days earlier and found 28 shell casings, though no one was injured. Three weeks earlier, a man was wounded in a shooting in the same area.

“My kids are out in the morning, going to school, and this could have been one of my kids, it could have been anybody,” said Larry Martin, who lives nearby and stood outside the crime scene tape on Friday morning.

Family members identified Wilbert Harris Jr. as the man who was killed. Police said Friday afternoon that investigators have been canvassing the area looking for witnesses and they had not made arrests in the case.

NEIGHBOR RAN TO TEEN AS HE WAS DYING

A man who lives down the block said he was sitting at his kitchen table when he heard gunshots. He said he saw someone, who told him he was Harris’ cousin, “chasing the guys who shot (Harris)” and screaming in the road.

The neighbor, who declined to give his name, said he accidentally broke off his front door knob as he tried to rush outside and instead went out the back door. He went to Harris and saw he could do nothing to help, but stayed with him.

“He died with my hand on his back,” said the man, who told his story to Harris’ mother when she came to the scene and gave her a hug. He said Friday morning that he was feeling “angry and heartsick” over what happened.

Harris’ mother, father, sister and other relatives gathered near where he was killed. As Harris’ sister cried in the street, a stranger approached, talked to her and rubbed her back. “I just felt the need to pray with her,” the woman said of Harris’ sister.

Police brought some people to headquarters to be interviewed, but police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster said Friday afternoon that “what happened out there and the events that led to this man’s death are still trying to be determined.”

‘FELT LIKE SOMETHING WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN’

On Friday morning, after a woman made sure her second-grade daughter was safely on the school bus, she returned home and soon heard six to eight shots.

“It makes me feel afraid all the time,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I walk down the street and I look around before I even come out of this house.”

Last year, a bullet coming from the direction of the nearby Carty Park went through the woman’s bedroom window. She wasn’t in the room, but had just put her children to bed and she ran to check on them. More recently, the woman said a stray bullet struck her air-conditioning unit and her neighbor’s siding.

Across the street, a man said he discovered a bullet hole in his door on Friday morning. He didn’t think it was from that day’s shooting, but had occurred another day.

The man has lived in his childhood home on-and-off for 60 years and asked not to be named because he’s worried about his safety. He said he’s noticed in the last year or two that young people who don’t live in the area are congregating on the block, drinking and smoking marijuana.

“Lately, it’s just been crazy and it felt like something was bound to happen,” he said.

Martin, who has lived in the area for just over a year, said he was glad to move to his block because it was quiet and full of families. But Friday’s shooting “makes me really think,” he said.

Another man who lives nearby became emotional when he thought about it — a dozen kids play on the street every night, and now he said he’s scared for them and his children.

“I think it’s important to know that families are here and people who want to start families are here and it hurts because I feel like this is a great neighborhood,” said the man, who’s lived in the area since 2015 and knows most of the neighbors on his block.

PAST GUNFIRE AT SAME INTERSECTION

The time of Friday morning’s homicide was unusual, Ernster said, but he added, “I don’t think any of these incidents are typical.”

City Council Member Dai Thao, who represents the area, said seeing “a son, brother and friend lose his life at the age of 19 is heartbreaking and disturbing.”

“Too many families lives have been changed because of gun violence, whether it’s lives lost or trauma,” Thao said Friday. “As a community-wide effort, I urge all of us to work together for public safety.”

The homicide was the 12th of the year in St. Paul, according to police.

The other recent instance of gunshots in the area happened Tuesday at about 10:35 p.m., when officers responded to the area of Carroll Avenue and Avon Street after multiple people reported hearing 12 to 20 shots fired, according to a police report. Officers found 28 shell casings in the street, Ernster said.

On Aug. 17 at about 7:30 p.m., a 25-year-old man was shot in the back and wounded at the same intersection where Harris was killed, according to a police report. Police found the man on Selby Avenue, near Dale Street, but determined he had been shot at Avon and Carroll after discovering multiple casings there, the report said.

Investigators “always look at any nexus to any other incident that we have,” Ernster said, including Friday’s homicide and the past gunfire in the area.