City sees four gun deaths in one night
The homicides occurred over several hours. "We are going to break last year's numbers," an activist warned.
In a particularly bloody few hours on the streets of Philadelphia, four men were killed in separate shootings Wednesday night and early yesterday, police said.
The first shooting occurred at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday when Kevin Cummings, 21, was shot inside his home in the 3000 block of Amber Street in Kensington. He was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later, police said. Police said they had no suspects and no motive.
Police were also looking for a motive in the shooting of William Moore. At 7:55 p.m., Moore, 20, of Germantown, was found shot in the chest and right side in the 6000 block of Theodore Street in Southwest Philadelphia.
He was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was pronounced dead, police said. There were no suspects, police said.
The third slaying happened at 12:17 a.m. Thursday when an 18-year-old man was found with a gunshot to the chest in the 3200 block of North 13th Street, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene a few minutes later, police said. Again, they said that no motive had been determined and that they had no suspects.
In the 6500 block of Regent Street in the city's Kingsessing section, a 25-year-old man was found in the street with gunshots to the head and chest at 12:18 a.m. yesterday. He was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was pronounced dead a few minutes later.
Police said the shootings brought the total of homicides for the new year to five, including a man who was shot Dec. 30 and died Tuesday.
Bilal Qayyum, a leader of the antiviolence group Men United for a Better Philadelphia, decried the rash of shootings.
"We are starting the year with five homicides. We're going to break last year's numbers," Qayyum said. "I don't want to see us in the position where we don't do whatever possible" to reduce the number of killings this year.
"We should learn from the past," Qayyum said as he recalled higher homicide numbers in the early 1990s. "The murder rate was high because of the drug problem. There is increased drug dealing now. There are open-air drug corners again."
Capt. Benjamin Naish, a police spokesman, said the four homicides in one overnight period "was unusual but not unprecedented."
"What we saw from last year is that we get [homicides] in spurts. These were in different neighborhoods and unrelated," Naish said.
At Police Headquarters, Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson said the department "is not happy with 406 homicides last year. We started off this year pretty well, but we've had four homicides in the last 12 to 14 hours. We're investigating all of them."
In the afternoon, he attended a previously scheduled meeting at the Police Academy to discuss strategies with police commanders and federal authorities about how to combat gun violence in the months ahead.
He said the department has a couple of initiatives in the works, including establishing a plainclothes unit of 10 to 12 officers to improve intelligence about street-corner drug gangs and sending police commanders to schools to talk to students about the dangers of drugs and violence. The commanders will also ask principals to identify young people likely to cause problems.
Meanwhile, Johnson reiterated his intention to step down at the end of the year when Mayor Street leaves office, adding: "The fact that we're going to have a new mayor is not going to stop all the violent crime in Philadelphia."
He also said that he hopes "the next commissioner comes from the ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department."