Six people were shot in Germantown when gunmen fired more than 65 shots onto the street, police say

A gunfight that injured a woman and five men erupted in Germantown late Thursday night when six armed people hopped out of a van and opened fire at a group on a street corner, causing some of those people to shoot back, according to police.

In total, authorities said more than 65 shots were traded during the gun battle, which happened around 11:40 p.m. on the 5100 block of Germantown Avenue near Collom Street.

A 21-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition, police said, while five men between the ages of 19 and 29 were also struck. The men were all reported in stable condition.

Police on Friday released surveillance video of the incident, which showed the six shooters emerging from a white work van, unloading a hail of bullets down Collom Street, then getting back into the van and driving away on Germantown Avenue. The footage also captured the group on the street corner, which appeared to be five individuals, scrambling behind parked cars and running down the street, with some of them returning fire.

Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters at the scene Thursday that the sheer number of shots fired made it difficult to discern an early motive.

“The fact that we found over 65 spent shell casings, that’s a lot of shots,” Small said. “So it’s hard to even say who’s the intended target and who was struck by stray gunfire.”

The incident was another violent episode in a year that has set a city record for gun violence.

It also prompted City Councilmember Cindy Bass, who represents the area, to ask Mayor Jim Kenney and Gov. Tom Wolf to dispatch National Guard troops to the city to “provide much-needed capacity support for our own police department,” in addition to helping enforce laws.

“We cannot fight the tragic escalation of gun violence alone,” Bass said in a statement Friday. She also called on federal authorities — including the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — to help “engage in this effort.”

Kenney’s spokesperson, Kevin Lessard, said Friday that the mayor wasn’t aware of Bass’ request and had no plans to call in the National Guard. Kenney earlier this year firmly rejected similar calls by some community activists as shootings rose, saying the National Guard is not trained to do big city police work, and that stationing troops in communities “is not respectful to that neighborhood.”

“We don’t think that would be an effective tool to bring in uniformed, camouflaged, rifle-carrying people in helmets to address this problem,” Kenney said at the time.

Wolf’s spokesperson, Elizabeth Rementer, said Friday that the governor and Kenney speak regularly about issues including gun violence, but that Kenney had not asked for troops to be sent to Philadelphia, and that “using the National Guard will not help in reducing community violence.”

Prior to Thursday’s shooting in Germantown, gun violence also impacted communities elsewhere in the city.

Around 5:15 p.m. Thursday in South Philadelphia, Perritti Dantzler, 32, was killed in a double shooting that left another 32-year-old man in critical condition, police said. That incident occurred on the 2100 block of Etting Terrace. Police said they believe two suspects were involved, but no one had been arrested.

About a half hour later, police said, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the back and critically wounded in a double shooting on the 5600 block of Arch Street in West Philadelphia. The other victim, a man in his 20s, was shot in the head and also hospitalized in critical condition, police said. No arrest was made in that shooting, police said.

And just before 2 a.m. Friday, police said, officers were called to the 3000 block of A Street, where a 29-year-old man was suffering from a gunshot wound to his back. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police did not identify him and said the investigation was ongoing.

The city has recorded 560 homicides this year through early Friday, according to police.

As of Tuesday, a total of 2,308 people had either been killed or wounded by gunfire in the city in 2021, city figures show.

Both tallies are record highs.

In Germantown Friday morning, neighbors and nearby business owners did not want to talk about the shooting from the night before. Several cars on Collom Street had bullet holes in windshields. And chalk outlines, which police use to point out shell casings, still lined the sidewalk in front of a corner store.

The shooting marked the second time in about four months that six people were shot in a single incident on that same block.

In August, police said, a 28-year-old man was killed and five other people were wounded in a drive-by shooting on the 5100 block of Germantown Avenue around 5:30 p.m.

Surveillance video later released by police shows a Chevy Impala briefly stopping in the street before two men wearing masks and hoodies open the passenger side doors and fire handguns toward the sidewalk. The car then drives away.

No one has been charged in that case, according to court records.

It was not clear if the incident had any connection to Thursday night’s shooting.