SAN DIEGO—A 17-year-old girl was shot in the back July 16 while riding in a car in Little Italy, police said.

The incident happened at 2:30 a.m. Saturday when a group of people from a motel went to get gas at a station on Pacific Highway and Laurel Street, said Officer O'Brien of the San Diego Police Department.

On their way back to the motel, the vehicle passed a group of three men and two women walking on the sidewalk and someone in the vehicle thought an object had been thrown at their car, the officer said.

The driver turned around and confronted the group on the sidewalk and they got into a verbal altercation. Someone on the sidewalk fired several shots, one of which hit the girl sitting in the back of the vehicle, O'Brien said.

She was taken to a hospital with serious injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening.

Detectives were investigating the incident.