In Phila., eight shot, one dead, several officers injured

A wild Thursday night into Friday morning across Philadelphia ended with eight people shot, one of them fatally, and five police officers injured while breaking up bar fights.

Quasay Johnson, 31, was shot dead outside his West Oak Lane home just after 12:30 a.m. Friday. Police said Johnson had received a phone call that drew him out of his apartment on the 7000 block of North 15th Street.

When Johnson reached the vestibule of his building, witnesses told police, they heard arguing, then shots fired. Johnson was hit three times in the chest and in an arm and was pronounced dead at the scene. Two men were seen running from the building entrance, but no arrests had been made.

Earlier on Thursday, two 18-year-olds were injured on Myrtlewood Street in Brewerytown shortly before 9 p.m. after a shooting that police believe was sparked by an argument. A man was in critical condition at Hahnemann University Hospital Friday after being shot in an arm, leg, and torso, and was expected to survive. A woman who was not involved in the argument was treated and released at St. Joseph's Hospital for a graze wound on her face.

At 9:40 p.m., a 52-year-old man who had just left his girlfriend's house and who was standing at the corner of Ninth and Brown Streets in North Philadelphia was caught in a hail of bullets. The man, whom police described as an innocent bystander, was in stable condition Friday at Hahnemann.

Around 2 a.m., two separate incidents resulted in injuries to police officers. Shortly before closing time at Lid's Lounge in the 6200 block of Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, an officer went to the bar to eject a man who had been asked to leave. The man was belligerent and he shoved the officer against the bar, police said.

Three officers then arrived to assist, at which point the man struggled with them, grabbed bottles, and began throwing them, hitting at least two officers in the head, police said. After arresting the man, the officers were treated for lacerations to the face and head, among other injuries, and were released. The man was still being processed Friday afternoon and was not identified.

Just after 2 a.m. Friday, an off-duty police officer at Benny the Bum's in the Northeast was attacked by two men in the parking lot, police said.

Police said that they did not yet know how the officer became involved, but that it was possible he was trying to help another patron.

An officer who responded to the scene saw the off-duty officer on the ground being kicked in the face by two men. The officer was taken to the Torresdale campus of Aria Health with a fractured skull. The men were arrested, but their names had not been released as of Friday afternoon.

At 2:30 a.m. Friday, four people were hurt when shots rang out during a fight at Banana's Bar & Lounge on Rising Sun Avenue in Olney. The victims - a 25-year-old woman and three men, ages 27, 28, and 31 - were reported in stable condition at Albert Einstein Medical Center with a variety of gunshot wounds, police said.

Investigators were still trying to sort out whether any of the people wounded had been involved in the fight, and they were searching for a suspected gunman who fled.