Sleeping brother injured when gunman sprays house with bullets

Derrick Robinson was playing Call of Duty about 2 a.m. Friday when, suddenly, the sound of gunfire became all too real.

A gunman, carrying what police believe was an AR-15 rifle, began ripping shots into the front of the house where Robinson, 18, and his brother Oliver, 22, live. The shots were fired from a basketball court at 53d and Euclid Streets in the Wynnefield section, across from the Robinsons' house. Police said they recovered 17 casings.

Bullets were sprayed through windows, above the front door, and, eventually, into the Robinson brothers' second-floor bedroom. Oliver Robinson, who was asleep in the bed below the front window, was struck in the right shoulder by a bullet that pierced through the house's brick wall.

The bullet was centimeters away from striking his head, Oliver Robinson said in an interview Friday, as he pointed at the hole in the wall and dusted shrapnel off his sheets. At the foot of the bed was a plastic bag of gauze and bandages from the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, where he had been treated early Friday.

"It felt like being struck by lightning," he said of being shot, while his brother - as he did the night before - sat nearby playing Call of Duty.

The mystery, police said, is why the bullets were fired into the house in the first place.

Lt. John Walker said that while police were still investigating, they were not convinced that the shooter was firing at that particular house.

The gunman, he said, "may have just been shooting in the air."

"It's a pretty quiet neighborhood," he said, adding that police were aware of no major problems or neighborhood disputes.

City data show five homicides in the last 30 days within the 19th District, which includes the Robinsons' house. But the Robinsons' block is in the northern part of the district, which, according to city figures, has considerably less crime than the southern area. The 5300 block of Euclid and the immediate radius had no recorded crimes over the last month, the data show.

Derrick and Oliver Robinson are two of 15 people who live in two connected corner homes on the block, and the other residents are a loose mix of relatives and acquaintances, some of whom the brothers know, some of whom they don't.

Walker described the house as a blend of "some family, some friends," and some people "who just rent space." Oliver Robinson said that an older man lives in the front room on the first floor, but that neither he nor his brother had spoken to him much.

Walker said police had "no reason to believe anyone in the house was a target" of the shooting, and Oliver Robinson added that he had no idea why someone would riddle the front of his house with bullets.

Bullet holes were visible Friday all over the property: A first-floor window was punctured, as was a space above the front door, and pieces of brick were dinged along the house's facade.

The Robinsons said they were talking about leaving the city, since they could no longer be sure they were safe in their own bedroom.

But Friday, Derrick Robinson remained upstairs playing his video game, and his brother was heading to his job at a nearby Subway sandwich shop - to explain why he hadn't shown up to work that day.