12-year-old boy shot while playing basketball on Bronx playground

SOUNDVIEW, Bronx (WABC) -- Police are investigating after a 12-year-old boy was shot while playing basketball on a Bronx playground Friday.

Isaiah Osborn was playing at the Story Playground in the Soundview section just after 5 p.m. when he realized he had been shot in the left hip. He was taken to Jacobi Hospital in stable condition.

"When I was running towards my son, they couldn't feel how I felt that day," mom Tricia Croal said. "They couldn't feel how I felt that day."

Anger, frustration and grief are just a few of the whirlwind of emotions that fill Croal's heart and soul while her little boy rests in a hospital bed.

"I'm tired of just getting emotional all the time," she said. "I'm tired of keeping it in. It's my baby. It happened to my baby, one of my babies."

Most kids hit the deck when the gunfire broke out, but Osborn took off running and was struck by a stray bullet.

"And then the bullet went up to his heart, his arteries, and ruptured a few stuff," Croal said. "But it's OK. He's going to make it."

Police continue to search for the gunman, comb through lobby surveillance videos and question those in the neighborhood. But the 35-year-old mother is now on a mission to bring cameras to the neighborhood and to increase the police presence.

"It's sad, man, you know what I'm saying," neighbor Eric Castro said. "This happens too much, man, out here. You know I mean. And the families are the ones who suffer."

More than anything, Croal is pleading with witnesses to set aside the "no-snitching" code of the street and help investigators find the suspect.

"Everybody says they respect me in the neighborhood, but respect me enough to simply say let's give up this person," she said. "Because it could be their kids. It could be their kids. Simply do what is right."

No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.