A tree that shielded two targets of a drive-by shooting just before midnight Wednesday didn't protect a Jacksonville man sitting nearby visiting friends.
Frank H. Harrity, 32, was killed when he was hit by gunfire from a shooter in a car who fired at two men walking by on Blue Street in Northwest Jacksonville. Harrity was with two friends on a small side porch drinking a beer when the gun battle broke out, one of the friends said.
The friend said the two men walking down the street returned fire and tried to dodge behind a tree at the edge of the sidewalk. The friend, who is not being named by the Times-Union because no arrests have been reported, said he heard a dozen or more shots exchanged between the car and the intended victims.
Harrity and his friends dove for the ground, the witness said. When the shooting ended, the dark car sped off and the two men ran down West 10th Street from the intersection with Blue.
"We started calling Frank's name and he didn't get up," the friend said.
He and the other man were unharmed, and no bullet holes were found in the house, but Harrity somehow got hit.
The friends did not know who was in the car or the two intended victims. They have not been identified by police.
"We do not know who they are," Lt. Rob Schoonover of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said, asking anyone with information to call police.
Harrity's friend said he had known the landscape worker for about a year and said he was the kind of man who tried to avoid trouble.
Before the shooting, the friend said the dark car started to pass by Blue on West Ninth Street then stopped and backed up to turn north where the two men were walking.
Times-Union writer Nicole Hernandez contributed to this report.