Six people injured, four killed in wave of weekend violence

As temperatures rose this week, so did crime, with a wave of violent incidents claiming the lives of four men and injuring six others.

At 178 victims as of this morning, the homicide rate is up 30 people from this date last year, an increase of over 20 percent. The body count is at its highest since Mayor Michael Nutter took office in 2008.

The mayhem touched off at 2:40 a.m. Saturday morning. Officers in East Germantown heard gunshots and found a man, 23, on the 500 block of East Tulpehocken Street with gunshot wounds to the back and both legs.

He was taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center in stable condition and is being treated for a broken leg and broken ribs.

The victim told police that he went to the Lukoil Gas Station at Chew Avenue and Washington Lane to buy cigarettes and, as he was walking home, he heard gunshots, felt pain and dropped to the ground. He was unable to give a description of the shooter or shooters.

A 17-year-old man was shot in a Cadillac parked on the 2000 block of East Clementine Street in Kensington around 6 a.m. Saturday. The teen told police that he was sleeping in the driver’s seat of the car when he awoke to an unknown man pointing a gun at his face.

As he attempted to push the weapon away from him, he heard a shot and felt pain in his left arm, then passed out. He said that, when he came to, he didn’t see anyone around and ran to a home across the street, where a resident called police.

The teen told investigators he didn’t realize that he had also been shot twice in the left leg until he was sitting on the steps of the house waiting for police. He was taken to Temple University Hospital in stable condition.

The suspect is described as a thin, 5-foot-10 to 6-foot tall black man between the ages of 16 and 20 wearing a red t-shirt and blue jeans.

A man was killed Saturday night on the 600 block of North 38th Street
near Haverford Avenue in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia. The
victim, 26, was shot in the arm and back around 11:45 p.m. and taken to
Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died a half hour later.

But the lion’s share of the weekend’s violent crime broke out in the early hours of Sunday morning, with three separate homicides occurring within five minutes of one another.

A man was shot and killed on the 4000 block of Market Street in
University City around 1:10 a.m.

Investigators said a patrol officer in the area heard gunshots, then saw the victim running from the unit block of North Preston Street toward Market. He collapsed in front of the officer’s car and was rushed to Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died at 3:15 a.m. The victim has not yet been identified, police said.

Five minutes later, a bartender was stabbed to death during a reported robbery at T-Barr’s Bar, located at 2201 S. 8th Street near Jackson Street in South Philadelphia.

Police said officers responded to find the victim, 44, unconscious behind the bar with stab wounds to his chest. He died on the scene at 1:30 a.m.

Around 1:20 a.m., four men were shot, one of them fatally, during a reported block party on the 3200 block of North Spangler Street in the Allegheny West section of North Philadelphia. Officers responding to the scene found a man, 33, shot in the head. He died at the scene.

Also wounded was a 19-year-old, who was shot multiple times and is in critical condition at Temple University Hospital and two other men, aged 34 and 38, who were each hit in their lower extremities and are in stable condition.

Police describe the suspect as an unknown black man who possibly fled in a black Jeep, last seen driving the wrong way on the 3100 block of Spangler Street.

A man was shot during a robbery in West Philadelphia around 4 a.m. this morning. Police said the victim, 45, was walking on the 1400 block of Peach Street, near 54th and Master streets, when three men got out of a dark car and approached him.

One of the men asked the victim if he had a lighter and he fled, fearing he was about to be robbed. He told police that, as he ran away, he felt a burning pain in his left buttocks and heard a car door slam and the vehicle pull away.

When the man got home, he found a hole in the seat of his pants and realized he’d been shot. He called police and was treated for his injury at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The suspects are described as three black men, each dressed in black clothing.

No identities have been released in any of the incidents and no arrests have yet been made.

A seventh man is also in critical condition following a shooting inside a Fairhill bar early this morning, according to a report from 6-ABC, but a police spokeswoman could not confirm the incident.