1 killed, 8 hurt after ‘shots came flying’ during July 4th gathering in Southwest Philly

A July Fourth gathering in Southwest Philadelphia descended into chaos on Thursday night when a gunman opened fire into a crowd, killing one man and wounding eight others, including four teens, police said.

What began as a “pop-up” party organized by teens on social media ended in pandemonium around 11:30 p.m. when a man fired from a passing SUV on the 1900 block of South Salford Street, shattering a fragile sense of safety in the Kingsessing neighborhood and leaving authorities searching for answers.

Police said a 19-year-old man was struck in the face and taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead minutes later. Eight other people ranging in age from 14 to 24 were also shot, and several nearby cars were hit by bullets, some left with their windows shattered.

The injured included three men — 24, 23, and 18 years old — each shot in the leg; a 21-year-old man shot in the shoulder; a 17-year-old boy who suffered a graze wound to the head; a 16-year-old boy shot in the thigh; a 15-year-old girl shot in the foot, and a 14-year-old boy shot once in the thigh. All were in stable condition, police said.

Police have not released the name of the man who was killed, but law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation identified him as Maurice Quain. However, friends and family who held two vigils for him on Friday identified him as Maurice White, a recent high school graduate whom they described as a kind-hearted friend and the life of every party.

The drive-by spray of gunfire marked the 41st multiple shooting in Philadelphia since 2015 in which at least five people were shot — and the sixth shooting with nine or more victims in that same period. It followed a shooting on the eve of Independence Day last year, mere blocks from Thursday night’s violence.

On Friday afternoon, a visibly emotional Mayor Cherelle L. Parker — joined by relatives of the man who was killed, along with law enforcement and city and state officials — condemned the violence and said it would not be tolerated.

“The pain and the trauma that you are feeling right now is not normal,” Parker told neighbors who gathered at the scene of the shooting. “And you shouldn’t have to get used to it.”

A woman officials said was a relative of the man who was killed wiped away tears as the mayor spoke. About 50 people gathered outside Bartram High School in Southwest Philadelphia to release balloons in his memory. White’s niece Jamira White-Tucker, 18, remembered him as a fun-loving and kind man who loved to dance.

“He was very kind to everybody. He was always happy,” she said. “Bringing people together — that’s what he was all about.”

White had plans to go to college. On social media, he beamed with pride about his graduation from Bartram, showed off his dance moves, and promoted the parties he threw to bond with his community.

His mother died two years ago, and he always posted in her memory on her birthday, Mother’s Day, or the anniversary of her death. “Happy anniversary to the one who birth me to this crazy world and left me too soon,” he wrote. “I love you, dukes.”

He often mentioned friends he lost to gun violence — including one who was killed just three weeks ago, in a shooting strikingly similar to the one that took his own life. Isya “Cece” Stanley, the 17-year-old who was fatally shot at a pop-up party in Fairmount Park, was like a sister to White, according to her mother, Regina Jones Stanley. The two threw lavish prom events for each other ahead of graduation and had became inseparable over the last year.

“He’s been calling me everyday since my daughter passed away,” Jones Stanley said Friday. “It’s got my stomach turning. It’s too much for me.”

In an Instagram post, White wrote he was heartbroken that “my sister lost her life for no reason,” offering up a Muslim prayer. A law enforcement source familiar with the ongoing investigation, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said police were looking at possible connections between the pop-up party shootings.

Taniesha Diaz, whose son Quadir was found dead in the Schuylkill River in April after being missing since March, also knew White. The two grew close after his mother’s death and he soon became friends with her son Quadir.

”He didn’t deserve this,” said Diaz. “He was not in the streets, he was a good kid who loved to see the kids in the city have fun.”

On Friday, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said “pop-up parties” have been linked to over a dozen recent shootings across the city, including two homicides. Thursday’s fatal gunfire was a reminder, he said, that the city needs to intervene. .

In Southwest Philadelphia on Friday morning, neighbors said hundreds of young people had gathered in the area near Francis Myers Park the previous night, disrupting traffic and holiday barbecues. One man, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons, said the police had attempted to control the crowd before the shooting, but were unsuccessful.

The group, he said, had gotten kicked out of a nearby recreation area earlier.

The event started in North Philadelphia and police were initially able to disperse the group, said Bethel, but the gathering migrated to Southwest Philadelphia. He said the event drew people from all over the city — mainly teens and people in their early 20s. Only two of the nine shooting victims lived near the scene of the shooting, the commissioner said.

“We have kids as far away as the Northeast, all the way up to close to Cheltenham Avenue, who are coming across the city,” he said. “They come into these areas, unknowing of what’s going on, [and they’re] surging together.”

On Thursday night, Taleke Green was outside enjoying a holiday cookout when shots rang out near his family’s home.

“We were standing out there, the shots came flying down the street,” he said. “They started hitting stuff close to us, that’s when we all ran.”

Green said the shots appeared to come from a passing vehicle, and that gunfire was directed at a crowd of young people running toward the First Genesis Baptist Church.

Police gave no motive for the shooting and it was not clear if the victims had been targeted. Multiple shell casings were found at the scene. Police recovered the vehicle believed to have been used in the shooting, but no arrests have been made, and no weapon has been recovered. The investigation is continuing.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who joined Parker at the afternoon news conference on Friday, said he hoped to bring “very severe” charges against the shooter.

”They’re going to be the appropriately very severe consequences that apply in a case like this,” he said, speaking alongside other elected officials near the scene of the shooting. Krasner credited community members for the stark reduction in gun violence in the area over the last year.

The Fourth of July shooting unnerved a neighborhood still shaken by a mass shooting that happened just blocks away on the eve of Independence Day last year, amid early celebration.

On July 3, 2023, police said, Kimbrady Carriker, wearing armor and a mask and armed with a homemade assault rifle, walked nearly a mile through the streets of Kingsessing, shooting people at random. Five people were killed and three others were injured in the gunfire. Carriker is awaiting trial on murder and related charges. Police said Carriker, who is Black, confessed to the crime and said he wanted to help police fight gun violence by targeting Black men in the neighborhood.

The sprawling shooting scene in that crime was in the area of South 56th Street and Chester Avenue, around 10 blocks away from Thursday night’s shooting.

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton recalled that shooting and lamented that little more than a year later, the neighborhood was once again grappling with holiday violence.

“We just celebrated the Fourth of July,” McClinton said at the Friday news conference. “And for those of us who live in and serve Southwest Philadelphia, it wasn’t even 366 days ago that we started Fourth of July at 56th and Chester Avenue looking at blood on our streets.

“And here we are a year later,” she added. “Understand we are blocks away. We are blocks away from where that horrible incident happened.”

White’s friends and family released white and red balloons outside Bartram on Friday, promising to keep his memory alive. In his final post on TikTok on Wednesday, the day before his death, White made a slideshow of photographs of friends who had been killed.

“Philly just don’t get better,” he wrote in the caption. “What can we do to save Philly?”

Graphics editor John Duchneskie and staff photographer Steve Falk contributed to this article.