Bystander dies weeks after shoot

An innocent bystander — shot in the head during a savage spasm of gang violence in Staten Island — has died.

Fran Williams succumbed to her wounds on Aug. 2 at Richmond University Medical Center, according to an obituary on the website of Stradford Funeral Home, where her funeral was held Thursday afternoon.

Williams, 67, was shot in the face as she stopped to talk to a friend at the corner of Jersey St. near West Ave. in New Brighton on July 10.

The bullet shattered her spine and embedded in her lung.

Williams survived getting shot on the same street 20 years ago, family members said.

One mourner described Williams, a home health aide who lived on the block where she was shot, as “a funny woman.”

“She was always trying to make people laugh,” added the woman who declined to give her name.

Williams nieces and nephews said their aunt cared about everyone in the community and knew everyone’s birthday.

“I will miss her coming to my house yelling, fussing around and telling me what I was supposed to be doing,” nephew Kashawn Williams, 33, said.

Detectives believe the shooting of Williams stemmed from a fatal brawl that erupted outside Staten Island Criminal Court earlier in the day.

Rival gang members came to blows inside the courthouse before spilling out onto the street where a gun and a knife were flashed.

Some of the men jumped into a stolen minivan in an attempt to cut off the gunman. As he opened fire on the speeding vehicle, the minivan slammed into him and pinned him against a home on Fort Place near Monroe Ave., police sources said.

The gunman, 26-year-old Robert Craigwell, died at the scene.

About 30 minutes later and a half-block away, men tied to the rival gangs opened fire on each other in what investigators believe was payback for Craigwell’s killing.