Maybe this 4th of July will be different. The gun violence raging in Philadelphia has dwindled. Maybe Independence Day will pass without bloodshed tarnished It’s in Lately year.
But just after 8 p.m. on Wednesday night, in a neighborhood in southwest Philadelphia, someone wearing a ski mask and armor opened fire on a street in the neighborhood, causing all sorts of sensations. The festival ended in a horrible way.
The shooter, using an assault-style rifle, killed five people, aged 15 to 59, and injured two others, opened fire seemingly at random, ramming a car carrying a family. Families are on their way home and people are just passing by. Police arrived to find what they described as the “vast scene” of the carnage, and chased the shooter into an alley where the shooter was arrested.
Police have yet to identify the suspect, who has not been charged. In initial reports, police described the suspect as a 40-year-old male, but authorities later clarified that they were unsure of the suspect’s gender identity and in a press conference on Wednesday. Ba used the pronoun “they/they”.
According to Larry Krasner, Philadelphia district attorney, while a lot of gun violence in Philadelphia occurs as a result of argument and retaliation, the shooter in this case appears to have fired unintentionally.
“At first glance, it seems like a lot of the random mass shootings that happen in the United States,” he said in an interview on 56th Street in the Kingsessing neighborhood where the shootings took place, co. Time added, “This doesn’t seem like a group of people who know each other very well.”
Mr. Krasner said he expects to see charges of more murders and weapon crimes against the shooting suspect in the next 24 hours.
The five people killed were Lashyd Merritt, 20; Dymir Stanton, 29 years old; Ralph Moralis, 59, Dajuan Brown, 15, and Joseph Wamah, Jr., 31. The two children, aged 2 and 13, were hospitalized with injuries and are in stable condition.
In a neighborhood where gunshots are not uncommon, witnesses said the volume and length of the gunshots were impressive. Authorities said about 50 used shell casings were found at the crime scene, covering an area of two blocks by four blocks.
On Tuesday morning, Theo James, 25, said he saw the shooter and heard gunshots unlike any he’d heard before: “The gunfire sounded like it was a military base. on the street corner.”
The shooter seemed to shoot at people at random, he said. Mr James said: “He was chasing everyone around.
According to his brother-in-law, Dominique Evans, one of the dead, Mr. Merritt, had just graduated from high school and was working from home for the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Merritt was on his way to the store when he was shot and killed.
Mr Evans said: “He was a kind man. “Very attentive, intelligent.”
Willa Mae Dill, who lives in the neighborhood, said her grandson, Stanton, is “very nice to people.” A sports fan, he has a girlfriend and a 4-year-old daughter, and he visits Miss Dill at her house almost every day.
Omar Davis, 60, was chatting with his friend Mr. Moralis, whom he called “Rab”, shortly before gunfire broke out on Chester Avenue.
Mr. Davis said he has known Mr. Moralis for at least 47 years. He works in restaurants. “Good friend,” he said. “He grew up in this community, everyone knows him.”
The shooting is one of at least 348 incidents across the country this year that have left at least four people injured or killed. According to the Gun Violence Archive.
In Philadelphia, gun homicides have skyrocketed in recent years, and the crisis has dominated recent mayoral elections.
The city sought to address the violence with funding community groups, violent intervention program and the previous curfew. It has sue the state legislature for giving priority to enacting stronger local gun ownership laws, such as reporting requirements for lost or stolen firearms.
The number of guns in the city caused the problem difficult to solveand at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Jim Kenney, the outgoing mayor, pleaded with Congress to pass measures to reduce access to ready guns.
“This country needs to examine its conscience and figure out how to get guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” he said.
There are signs that gun violence in Philadelphia may be declining. There have been 212 homicides in 2023 so far, one downfall is 19 percent from 2022, according to the Office of the Comptroller.
But for the families of those killed, those numbers offer little consolation.
Dajuan Brown, 15, a rising sophomore at Jules E. Mastbaum Regional Vocational/Technical School, is spending the summer at his grandmother’s house in the southwest part of the city.
His mother, Nyshyia Thomas, 34, said the teenager “has a little spice in his dance. “You’re sad when you’re with him, he doesn’t let you be sad.”
“My son is 15 years old,” his mother said. “And I will never see my son again.”
Amy Harmon And Livia Albeck-Ripka contribution report. Kirsten Noyes And Sheelagh McNeill contribution research.
