Philly shootings, stabbings persist despite holiday weekend of lousy weather and preventative measures

Before the start of Memorial Day weekend, city officials acknowledged that they were bracing for more names to be added to the long list of Philadelphians who have been shot this year.

There was no point in suggesting otherwise, not with 200 homicides, and 815 shooting victims, having already been recorded by the time Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw spoke Thursday afternoon, during a biweekly virtual meeting on gun violence prevention strategies.

“These numbers, these statistics, are reported out so much, and they’re so much more than a number,” Outlaw said. “These lives that are lost are members of communities. Entire communities are affected, and families’ lives are forever changed.”

So the police department planned to increase patrols over the weekend, focusing especially on rec centers and neighborhood pockets where shootings have surged. The city also made available dozens of community crisis intervention team members to help defuse tensions and disagreements before they boiled over and ended in bloodshed.

And still, at least six people were shot in Philadelphia, one of whom died, and four others were stabbed.

The preventive measures, and a spell of cold, rainy weather, couldn’t stop the gun violence epidemic that casts a shadow of grief and trauma across the city — and the rest of the country, too.

While nurses and doctors in local hospitals tended Sunday to the latest patients to arrive with gunshot wounds, first responders more than 1,000 miles away, in Northwest Miami-Dade, Fla., were processing a mass shooting in a shopping center parking lot that left two people dead and 20 wounded, the Miami Herald reported.

The motive for the Florida shooting, which reportedly involved three people who fired indiscriminately with assault rifles and handguns at a crowd outside a concert, was unclear, a theme consistent in the gun violence in Philadelphia, which began shortly before 12:30 a.m. Saturday, when two males were shot on Frankford Avenue near Tyson Avenue in the Northeast.

A 16-year-old was wounded once in the right leg, and a 21-year-old was shot in both of his legs, police said. Both were admitted to Jefferson Frankford Hospital in stable condition.

About that same time, a 38-year-old man was stabbed in the hand and abdomen on Allegheny Avenue near C Street in Kensington, and admitted in stable condition to Temple University Hospital.

At 2:45 a.m., also in Kensington, a 29-year-old man was stabbed in the chest by another person inside an apartment on Frankford Avenue near Orleans Street. The man was admitted to Temple in stable condition.

A third stabbing was reported shortly after 4 a.m., by a 22-year-old man who’d been wounded in the lower back on 27th Street near Montgomery Avenue in North Philadelphia. Medics took him to Temple in stable condition.

No arrests were made in any of those stabbings.

Later that day, police were called to 53rd Street near Thompson Street in West Philadelphia, where a 26-year-old man had been shot once in the right arm shortly before 9 p.m. He was admitted to Lankenau Medical Center in stable condition.

No motives or arrests were reported in connection with the Sunday slaying of a 28-year-old man who was shot in the head, on Olney Avenue near 10th Street — not far from the Einstein Medical Center — at 2:24 a.m. The man, whose name was not released by police, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Shortly before 10 a.m., police said, a 56-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman were shot inside a house on Napa Street near Huntingdon Street in Strawberry Mansion. The man, who’d been wounded in the thigh, and the woman, who’d been shot in the torso, were both admitted to Temple in critical condition.

About two hours later, a 37-year-old man was stabbed once in the back on Holme Avenue near Willits Road in Northeast Philadelphia, and was admitted to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital in stable condition. No arrest was made.

During Thursday’s meeting, officials discussed a range of responses to the gun violence crisis, from offering thousands of dollars in grants for programs that might reduce shootings among youths and young adults, to an ongoing lawsuit the city filed against Pennsylvania for the right to enact strict local gun-control laws.

Joel Dales, a deputy police commissioner, said officers have made more than 1,100 arrests for firearms-related offenses so far this year, and seized more than 2,400 guns connected to crimes. Still, the city’s homicide tally, now at 211, is 38% higher than it was a year ago.

The homicide and shooting totals have become political fodder for opponents of District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is running for a second term. But Krasner easily topped his Democratic primary challenger, Carlos Vega, earlier this month, with many voters unconvinced that Krasner should be blamed for a spike in gun violence that began before he was elected, and has mirrored increases in other large cities. (Krasner will face Republican defense lawyer Chuck Peruto in the November election.)

Since 2015, nearly 8,500 shootings have been recorded in Philadelphia, but only 21% have resulted in a someone being charged.