The man drove straight to the hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead. The girl is in critical condition but expected to survive, Hayden said.

P.J. Jones was in her house at the intersection at around that same time, when she heard six to eight gunshots coming from the alley behind her.

“It sounded like, ‘Pop-pop-pop-pop,’” Jones said. “I froze immediately. It was so frightening.”

She got up and looked out the window, but didn’t see anything. Detectives later came to her house to check her security camera footage, but she said the video didn’t catch the shooting.

Jones, who grew up in the house, has heard gunshots before, but usually they’re farther away.

“I’m so sick of hearing gunshots,” she said. “I wish the neighborhood would get back to the way it was.”

She said detectives placed evidence tags in the alley behind her house, marking the locations of bullet casings.

About an hour after the shooting, a silver Nissan Rogue was still parked at the entrance to the emergency room at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The SUV’s back window was shattered. Police tape wrapped around the car. Officers spoke to adults who were crying and hugging.