MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Police are investigating after a woman was shot outside her East Memphis home Monday afternoon.
Friends identified the woman as 65-year-old Viola Richardson.
Officers responded to the home on the 4100 block of Fizer Avenue at 1:44 p.m.
They say a mechanic was working on Richardson’s car when three men approached.
Two of the men led the mechanic inside the home to retrieve money, police said.
Another man shot Richardson outside.
“They sounded like ‘Pow, pow!’ I heard, like, two shots,” said neighbor Bertha Smith.
Richardson was transported to Regional Medical Center in critical condition.
The mechanic was unharmed.
All three suspects fled the scene and remain at large.
Maj. Carlos Davis with the Memphis Police Department said there was no preliminary evidence to indicate the suspects knew their victims.
“Don’t pick on the elderly because it’s hard for them to defend themselves as it is,” said Richardson’s friend and neighbor Isaac Rogers.
“It’s really pathetic, you know, ‘cause, I mean, you look around and it’s actually a quiet neighborhood,” said a neighbor.
But the quiet is being interrupted more and more frequently by gunfire, according to other neighbors.
“This neighborhood is — is starting to get dangerous,” said Rogers.