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PHILADELPHIA - But a city woman lost her wheels when a bullet pierced her car during a homicide and police had to pry it out.
It was around 9 on the chilly first night of November when Ana Rivera walked into her grandparents' Juniata home and realized she needed to make a trip back outside.
The 19-year-old saw her chance to move closer the car her boyfriend's mom kindly let her borrow.
"Like five minutes later there was gunshots," Ana said.
Lycoming Street was awash in red and blue flashing lights as officers searched the murder scene with flashlights.
Before towing away the car, a detective said they needed to take it and the bullet lodged inside for evidence, saying, according to Ana, "that they were not gonna damage the car any way. If they couldn't take [the bullet] out, that they was gonna leave it as is."
"It could have happened to anyone, like, you know what I mean?" Angel said.
"I see just, just a big hole in the car," Angel told us. "I was like ... I was just mad 'cause the detective said they wasn't gonna do nothing to the car."
"We've still got some measurements on the, on the car. This is where the bullet hole was," Angel said.
Police directed the Cruz family to file a damage claim with the City of Philadelphia's Risk Management Division. They did so within two weeks.
It took the city until Jan. 20 - more than two months - to acknowledge the claim and request more paperwork.
The city is "not responsible for the 'Criminal Acts of a Third Party,'" the letter said, adding that the police report "stated this was a homicide investigation." Not only was the claim denied, the file was closed.
Why'd they call FOX 29 Investigates? They found online one of our stories from last spring about a woman's parked car that was hit by a city trash truck in South Philly. The public works driver even left a note, on a city form, with the truck's number! Risk Management told the owner a private contractor may be responsible. But when we got involved, they quickly paid her $1,000 deductible.
"I'm very happy that my mom's getting her car fixed, you know, to take my brother and sister to school, go to appointments and stuff like that," Angel said.
The city believed the damage estimates exceeded the car's value, which is what resulted in the $1,000 settlement offer.
So far, there are no reports of any arrests in the homicide case, Cole reported.