The girls had gone to the door of the friend's apartment building to ring for her, as their parents waited in the car.
Several Latino men approached the car, neighbors said. One shot the father. The mother screamed for her children to run, and then drove away to escape the hail of bullets.
She took her husband to a hospital. Her girls ran five blocks as gang members chased them, then hid and called a relative from their cellphone to pick them up, neighbors said. Police confirmed that the girls had been chased, but had no further details. They did not release any of the family members' names, but said the father survived the shooting.
McIntosh and other neighbors said they heard their account of the shooting from the mother of the girl the family was picking up.
Standing nearby, Sharon Braggs, who lives in the same building as McIntosh, said the city needs to do more to stem the violence.
Braggs, who has lived in the neighborhood for nine years with her three children and nephew, said she was terrified to let her children out of the house, or to invite her mother over after dark.
"I used to sit on the porch," she said. "I don't do that anymore."
Najee Ali, an activist who runs Project Islamic Hope and has been trying to negotiate a truce among gangs in the area, vowed to return to the neighborhood Saturday to hold a community meeting to discuss public safety.
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jessica.garrison@latimes.com
