A 76-year-old St. Croix woman was watching television with her son Sunday when gunfire erupted, police said Thursday. Bullets flew through her apartment wall and tore into her ankle, breaking bones.
The shooting seemed to start in a second-floor apartment in a neighboring building at the Lorraine Village complex, said V.I. Police Department Cmdr. Nyomi Joseph. The victim’s son said he heard as many as 20 shots at around 3 p.m. Some of the bullets pierced an empty apartment in the next building, then entered the victim’s apartment about three inches from the floor.
One bullet broke the woman’s distal fibula, a prominent bone structure where the ankle joint meets the tibia leg bone, police said. She screamed out in pain, her son told police.
In all, three apartments in two of the wood-framed buildings in St. Croix’s Plessen area were damaged, according to police.
Police were searching Thursday for suspects and a motive in the shooting.