Child hospitalized in critical condition

By Associated Press, 7/2/2003

Anthony Warren at his arraignment Wednesday in district court in Dorchester. (Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer) The mother of the injured girl (center) leaves court surrounded by friends and reporters. (Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer)  REALVIDEO | NECN.com | Help with video | Man pleads not guilty in shooting Video clips require RealPlayer and Windows 98 or higher.  IN TODAY'S GLOBE Girl, 3, shot in Dorchester

BOSTON -- A 3-year-old girl was in critical condition after she was hit in the back by errant gunfire, and a neighborhood man was arrested in connection with the shooting, police said.

Authorities said Kai Leigh Harriet was sitting with relatives in a chair on a third-floor porch when gunfire erupted around 11 p.m. Tuesday in the city's Dorchester neighborhood.

Police said a relative who heard the gunfire grabbed the child and pulled her inside, and then discovered the girl had been wounded.

After treatment by emergency medical technicians, she was taken to Boston Medical Center, where she remained in critical condition on Wednesday, the Suffolk County district attorney's office said.

Authorities said the shots were fired from outside the house after an argument broke out between the alleged shooter and someone on the first-floor of the triple-decker on Bowdoin Street. Witnesses said there were at least four gunshots.

A man left the scene in a car. Police, based on witness accounts and a description of the vehicle, tracked down the suspect a short time later.

Anthony L. Warren, 26, of the Hyde Park section of the city, pleaded innocent to charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and other charges. He was ordered held on $500,000 bail, but his bail from two other pending cases was revoked and he was ordered held.

The shooting prompted a news conference from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who called for a halt to violence in the city.

"The law will come down on hoodlums who engage in this kind of heinous activity," Menino said.

In May, a teenager walking from his grandmother's house on nearby Holiday Street was wounded in the second of two shootings that evening. Neighbors said nearly 30 shots were fired, wounding Dana Gallop, 17, in the chest.

In another shooting just a few blocks away, a spray of bullets hit a house at 6:30 p.m., where a group of young men were gathered on a front porch. One bullet entered the living room, just missing two young children.