Philadelphia mass shooting kills 1 person, injures 8 on 4th of July
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A mass shooting that killed a man and injured eight other people happened after Philadelphia police officers tried to break up a roving pop-up party, city leaders said in a news conference Friday.
Police said around 11:30 p.m. on the Fourth of July, a person in the passenger seat of an SUV fired multiple gunshots at a group of people gathered on the 1900 block of South Salford Street, a side street between Chester and Kingsessing avenues in Southwest Philadelphia.
Police said a 19-year-old man, who was shot once in the face, was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and pronounced dead late Thursday night.
A pop-up party had reached the neighborhood after officers broke it up multiple times across the city on Thursday night, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said at a news conference Friday.
The party was set to begin in North Philadelphia but was broken up by Philadelphia police officers before it moved across the city in the area of 58th Street and Kingsessing Avenue near the Francis Myers Recreation Center, Bethel said.
"We were getting a number of calls from that community," Bethel said. "The men and women were on the ground working to break up that group, and they believe that around 11 o'clock they were able to get that group to stand down."
"Unfortunately, through their network, they were able to reconvene and that resulted in an individual coming up in a vehicle, firing multiple rounds from that vehicle and striking multiple individuals on the highway," Bethel said.
Police said an officer found a victim with gunshot wounds lying in the middle of the street, and then other officers were called to the scene. Police found a total of nine victims, five of whom are adults and four who are teenagers.
Some victims were found at the scene, while others showed up at nearby hospitals. Police said all surviving victims are in stable condition.
In addition to the 19-year-old, police said medics took four victims to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center:
- A 23-year-old man, who was shot once in the right leg;
- An 18-year-old man who was shot once in the left leg;
- A 21-year-old man who was shot once in the left shoulder;
- A 17-year-old boy who had a bullet graze his head
Two victims were being treated at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, including a 16-year-old boy shot once in the left thigh and a 15-year-old girl shot once in the left foot.
A 14-year-old boy first arrived at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Cedar Avenue location before he was transferred to CHOP.
A ninth victim, a 24-year-old man, arrived at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Delaware County seeking treatment and was later taken to Penn Presbyterian.
Philadelphia police pledge to break up pop-up events after shooting
A similar event by the same organizers took place in Fairmount Park in mid-June and also ended in a shooting, Bethel said. A shooting took place near that event that wounded four people and killed 17-year-old Isya Stanley.
"We have a duty to stop these activities," Bethel said, saying juveniles' parents need to get involved but acknowledging young adults are also involved in the pop-up events.
There have been 14 shootings and two homicides connected to pop-up events, the commissioner added.
Police will now be upping enforcement of these events.
"We can no longer just allow individuals to come from - many of the kids and most of the individuals who were shot here...are not from this area," Bethel said.
Bethel said the Fourth of July is one of the most challenging days for the police department and moving officers around the city.
Police didn't mention a motive or suspects for the shooting but Bethel said officials are working toward identifying the vehicle involved and have made progress in the investigation.
"It is very alarming, and especially when we have officers in the area to try to prevent anything like this from happening, and it still happened," Philadelphia Police Inspector Kpana Massaquoi said in an earlier news conference soon after the shooting.
The mass shooting happened about one year after 5 people were killed less than a mile away, in the area of 54th Street and Chester Avenue. That was one of the deadliest mass shootings in Philadelphia history.
Kingsessing had just honored the victims of that shooting with a vigil on July 3.
"The pain and the trauma that you are feeling right now is not normal," Mayor Cherelle Parker said. "And you shouldn't have to get used to it. I don't want you to think that we in the city are ever going to get used to it."
Parker said that while the city has touted its homicide numbers are down as is the number of shootings, "if anybody thinks that we can look at those stats and celebrate here in the city of Philadelphia like we have tackled, like we have found the solution, the magic wand to address the culmination of violence, unnecessary violence in the city, this is no time to be celebrating."