Killings resume following 8-day lull

After a record pace of 26 slayings in the first two weeks of the new year, homicide took a little-noticed holiday in Philadelphia.

It lasted eight days.

At 11:24 p.m. Monday, Domingo Torres, 20, was shot in the shoulder on the 100 block of West Westmoreland Street in the West Kensington. Less than a half-hour later, Torres, of the 500 block of West Cumberland, was dead at Temple University Hospital.

Homicide detectives yesterday were trying to determine a motive for the shooting that made Torres, who was on probation for a weapons charge, the 27th homicide victim of 2007, compared to 20 for the same period last year.

Before that incident, there had been no homicides in the city since Jan. 14, although shootings were unabated, including the wounding of a 17-year-old sophomore on the grounds of Sayre High School in West Philadelphia.