37-year-old man killed in triple shooting in West Philadelphia, police say
Two other men suffered injuries, police said. Authorities now say 64 people have been killed in Philadelphia in 2021, a 33% increase compared to last year.
A 37-year-old man was killed Sunday night in a triple shooting in West Philadelphia, according to police.
The man, whom police did not identify, was shot in the chest and the leg around 10:50 p.m. on the 6200 block of Lansdowne Avenue, police said. Officers took him to Lankenau Hospital, where he was declared dead just after midnight.
A 40-year-old man was also shot in the left wrist, police said, and a 30-year-old man was shot in the right ankle. Both were also hospitalized; police did not report their conditions.
Police said no arrests were made and no weapons were recovered. They did not provide information about any possible motive or suspects, except to say that whoever fired the shots likely drove away in a dark car.
The killing added to a violent start to 2021: Through Sunday, according to police statistics, 64 people had been slain in the city this year, a 33% increase compared to the same time last year.
In addition, 251 people had been shot through Sunday, police said, a 69% increase compared to last year’s pace.
Gun violence, which had been steadily increasing for several years, reached levels in 2020 that had not been seen for at least a decade.
Before 2020, the city had only experienced two months since 2007 when at least 180 people were shot. But the city has eclipsed that tally for the past nine consecutive months, and in August, the trend hit an alarming high, when nearly 300 people were killed or wounded in shootings.
Officials have blamed a host of factors for the ongoing violence — including concentrated poverty and easy access to guns — as well as issues connected to the coronavirus pandemic, such as unemployment; the disruption of city services including policing, schools, and the criminal courts; and even the ability of gunmen to wear masks on streets with fewer witnesses.
Law enforcement has also struggled to deliver justice as the violence has steadily intensified: The Inquirer reported last year that authorities had charged gunmen in just 21% of the nearly 8,500 shootings since 2015.
Last week, after seven homicides were recorded in a 24-hour stretch, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said the department was adding investigators and trying to adapt their methods to respond to the bloodshed.