A drive-by shooting, an unusual bond

Friends and relatives gather in the alley near Berendo Avenue and Imperial Highway where Woodrow Player Jr., 22, was fatally shot by police July 10. In the center are his mother, Patricia Thompson, and father, Woodrow Player Sr.  (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Paramedics wheel Rashaun Williams, one of four drive-by shooting victims, away from the scene. Williams, a home health aide and single mother from Lancaster, was shot twice in the legs July 11 when she was in the area of South L.A. where people had gathered to mourn the shooting death of a man by officers the day before.  (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Rashaun Williams, 29, recuperating at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, closes her eyes as she recalls the drive-by shooting that left her badly injured. Doctors said it could be a year before Williams walks again.  (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Rashaun Williams recuperates at Centinela Hospital Medical Center after the shooting that left her injured. One bullet shattered her right femur and lodged in her hip.  (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

In severe pain, Rashaun Williams struggles after returning from treatment and surgery at an Inglewood hospital to her apartment in Lancaster. Shot in the legs in a drive-by in South L.A., she had been in the area to attend a relative’s birthday party.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Rashaun Williams, left, talks to Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske after Williams was sent home to recuperate from surgery. Hennessy-Fiske had been covering a story in South L.A. when the drive-by shooting occurred in which Williams was injured. Having taken a first aid course before a previous assignment in Iraq, Hennessy-Fiske applied direct pressure to the bandage on Williams’ wound.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Ky’mariy Redd , 6, smiles at her mother, Rashaun Williams, at their home in a Lancaster apartment. Williams had recently moved there to protect her daughter from gang violence but was herself severely injured in a drive-by shooting in South L.A. when in the area for a family event.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Ky’mariy Redd , 6, center, plays with her cousins in her new bedroom. Her mother, Rashaun Williams, had recently moved the two of them to the apartment in Lancaster and hadn’t had a chance to furnish it before becoming an innocent victim of a drive-by shooting in South L.A. in which she was badly injured.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A “get well” balloon is one of the few decorative items in Rashaun Williams’ Lancaster apartment, which she hadn’t even had a chance to furnish after moving there to protect her 6-year-old daughter from gang violence before becoming a victim of it herself. The single mother has a long road to recovery ahead of her after being shot in the legs in a drive-by shooting in South L.A.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)