One man dead, one critical in another wave of weekend violence

Philadelphia saw yet another violent weekend. At least two separate shootings and one stabbing incident during the early hours of this morning alone left one person dead and one person in critical condition.

Shortly before midnight Saturday, an 18-year-old was attending a party at a banquet hall at 16th Street and Hunting Park Avenue in Nicetown. He walked to a gas station at Germantown and Hunting Park avenues, where he got into a verbal argument with an unknown man. The victim, believing a physical fight was looming, raised his hands, but fled as he saw the man reach for something in his waistband.

As the victim was running away, he heard two gunshots. Party attendees called police when he returned, and responding officers found he had been shot once in the upper back. He was taken to Temple University Hospital in critical but stable condition.

The suspect is described as a six-foot-one black man between the ages of 18 and 20 with dyed blonde hair and a tattoo on the front of his neck of a Phillies “P” surrounded by a star.

Two men, aged 31 and 26, were stabbed in the chest on the 2400 block of East Hagert Street in Kensington around 1:20 a.m. after getting into an argument with a third man. The first victim was treated at Episcopal Hospital and released, while the second is in critical but stable condition at Temple University Hospital.

Police describe the suspect as an unknown white male wearing a black t-shirt.

In a separate incident, two officers left the Police Detention Unit on the 700 block of Race Street around 2 a.m. and from their car saw an unknown man firing a gun into the air on the 700 block of Arch Street in Center City North.

The officers got out of the cruiser and chased the suspect on foot, but lost him in a crowd of people filing out of Roar Nightclub at 720 Arch Street.

Fifteen minutes later, officers responding to a report of a person with a gun on the 700 block of Appletree Street, less than a block away, saw a blue Dodge Durango speeding away from the Parkway Corp. parking lot on the 700 block of Arch Street.

They stopped the vehicle to investigate and found one man, 26, with a gunshot wound in his right hand and a second man, 22, with lacerations to his buttocks from broken glass. Both were taken to area hospitals in stable condition.

Authorities said that, after further investigation, they found the victims went to Roar Nightclub with three other people. After they left the club and picked up the Durango from the parking lot, two unknown men allegedly walked up to the car and began to punish the 26-year-old victim in the face.

Police said the 26-year-old man, who was driving the car, heard two gunshots as he sped away. The men both ducked down as the bullets smashed through the rear window, striking the first victim in the hand.

Less than two hours later, police found an unconscious man, 32, lying in the street on the 400 block of South 4th Street near Pine Street in Society Hill. The victim, who suffered a gunshot wound to the chest, was rushed to Jefferson Hospital, where he died around 4:30 a.m.

Police have not released the man’s identity or what may have led to his death.