SAN FRANCISCO -- Three people suffered gunshot wounds in what police believe may have been a brazen sidewalk robbery attempt early Tuesday in San Francisco's Tenderloin District.

The shooting occurred around 4 a.m. at Turk and Leavenworth and left bodies, spent shells and a sawed off shotgun spread across the ground.

Local residents said heard the shots and took cover.

"I was scared," Jackie Brown told KTVU. "I ducke din my chair. I didn't know if they were going to stop shooting...bullets have no conscience, they go everywhere."

Lawrence Tivhobearx said he heard six shots.

"I was in up in my apartment and I heard pow, pow, pow, pow, pow," he said. "I knew they were gunshots."

There was no information on the condition of the three people shot and investigators were awaiting crime scene specialists at the scene of the shooting.