'I don't feel safe': West Philly mom bravely speaks out after she and teen daughter are shot in their home
WEST PHILADELPHIA - A West Philadelphia mother shows incredible courage by speaking out after she and her teenage daughter ware both shot at their home Wednesday night.
"I don’t feel safe here. And, I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do," shooting victim Kada Upshur stated.
Upshur, the mother of eight and lifelong resident of West Philadelphia, bravely sat down with FOX 29 hours after being discharged from Penn Presbyterian Medical Center following Wednesday night’s shooting incident that left her and her 16-year-old daughter wounded inside the entryway of her home.
She said it all unfolded when two unfamiliar young boys approached her home on the 5700 block of Spruce Street looking for a young man who didn’t live there, but was known friend of her teenage son.
"I told him I would check to see if he was here. He was very polite, ‘Thank you ma’am, I appreciate it,’" Kada described the encounter.
Upshure told FOX 29 the young man pair was looking for did come inside to use the bathroom a few minutes prior to them knocking on her door. "I checked my house. I checked upstairs, I checked the basement and he wasn’t here. And, that’s what I went to tell the young man."
She says that’s when things went left. "I told him that and he just started going crazy. Punching his hands and telling me when he catch him and the bull he was with, the bull who lives here, ‘I’m gonna cook him!’"
Adding the angered young man verbally threatened her teenage son. "That’s when I lost it, like, ‘Hey don’t threaten my son. Please don’t do that. You didn’t even ask for my son, you asked for someone who doesn’t live here!’"
Upshure went on to say the pair walked off of her porch before the unthinkable happened.
"He turned away and that’s when I seen him pull up his shirt," she continued. "I tried to get into the house for safety and that’s when I was hit. But, my daughter was standing behind me and she got shot."
Philadelphia police say the suspect fired at least five times through the front door, hitting the 52-year-old in the hip. Her 16-year-old daughter, standing behind her, was hit in the leg.
Both were rushed to Penn Presbyterian and discharged hours later. But, Upshure says she now worries about her family’s safety.
"I still have to worry about my son going to school every day and that’s a parents worst nightmare, if their kid will be safe just to and from school," Upshure said. "How do I feel safe? If it happens to me and my family, the police will solve the case and move onto the next, but I have to live in fear."
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