A private gun sale Monday afternoon turned into a robbery that ended with four people shot, Columbus police said.

The shooting was reported around 2:15 p.m. at a home in the 800 block of East Livingston Avenue. Police and Columbus Fire paramedics found three people with gunshot wounds; a fourth wounded person arrived on their own at Nationwide Children's Hospital, which is less than a mile away.

Assault Squad Sgt. James Jardine said the three adults and a juvenile all were in stable condition at various hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Edward Thorn III, 17, of Gilbert Avenue on the South Side, and others went to the home to sell a handgun to Tyell M. Reid, 19, police said in a news release late Monday night.

Instead of making the transaction, police said Thorn pulled out a handgun and began firing multiple times. Police said an unknown individual came to the defense of Reid, opening fire on Thorn and the other suspects, who fled from the home.

The release does not specifically identify who was wounded, or whether Thorn and Reid were among them.

A witness who didn't want to be named said he heard a lot of shots and saw young people running out of the house's front and back doors. He said one person who appeared to have been shot in a leg hopped a fence and limped to the corner of Livingston and Gilbert Street.

Search warrants were to be executed at the home and on at least one vehicle that might be involved in the investigation, Jardine said.

ShotSpotter technology is active in that area, but because the shots were indoors and the home's doors were shut, the sensors did not pick up the sounds, Jardine said.

The house is about a block from Livingston Elementary School, which was placed temporarily on lockdown.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner