Another nightclub shooting kills a man

Police are asking for the public's help in finding a gunman who shot another man outside an after-hours club in Germantown early Sunday.

About 4:30 a.m., police were called to the 5700 block of Germantown Avenue, outside the Upper Deck Night Club, where shots had been fired.

Wadel Akers, 23, of the 1200 block of East Haines Street, was found shot in the head in the driver's seat of a 2007 Chrysler Sebring.

Akers had attempted to drive off, but passed out. A passenger took control of the car and halted it, said Lt. Frank Vanore, police spokesman.

Akers was pronounced dead about three hours later at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Vanore said detectives were unable to interview the victim and have not been able to determine a motive. It appears that the gunman was aiming at the Sebring, but the passenger did not recognize him.

Witnesses said the gunman was in a four-door burgundy vehicle with tinted windows that had been double-parked where the shooting occurred. He was talking to another person in a white vehicle that was also parked on Germantown.

The shooting took place as the club was letting out and there were about 100 people in the area, Vanore said.

Anyone with information about the occupants of the burgundy or white vehicles parked outside the Upper Deck is being asked to call homicide detectives at 215-686-3334.

The city has had a number of fatal shootings at clubs in recent months. Last month, a gun battle erupted outside a club in Old City, leaving one person dead and another critically injured.

Earlier that month, University of Pennsylvania police fatally shot a man who opened fire on a DJ at a club near campus. That shooting came about a month after a police officer was shot during a confrontation at another club near campus. In that case, the gunman was fatally shot by police who returned fire.