Philly officials outline efforts to stem gun violence surge

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia officials held the first of a series of planned biweekly briefings on efforts to stem surging violence in the city, which has seen a drastic increase this year in the already near-historic level of homicides in the city and has claimed the lives of a number of young people.

Mayor Jim Kenney, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and other officials spoke Wednesday of efforts to get illegal firearms off the streets, increase patrols and engage with community groups to work with young people to try to head off potential violence.

“We are all responsible for what goes on here," Outlaw said. “This is our community, and these are our children."

She said there were 412 shooting victims so far this year, and the 103 homicides so far represented a increase of more than 30% over the level last year, which saw a near-record 499 homicides in the city. Officials said the most common homicide motives were arguments, drugs and domestic disputes, the last one up 33%.

Outlaw earlier vowed beefed-up patrols in troubled areas, and officials said Wednesday they planned extra deployments around pools and recreation centers with the approach of warm weather, when violence traditionally increases in the city.

Kenney said 2021 “is on track to be the most violent year we've experienced in our lifetimes."

“It makes me absolutely sick to know so many Philadelphians have suffered these preventable deaths, and so many families and communities have been ripped apart in the wake of each loss," he said. “It's painfully clear that we must take new approaches."

Philadelphia officials have come out repeatedly in recent days to talk about the violence, which saw three teenagers killed in two days last week. A 17-year-old was shot in the chest near a recreation center in the Kingsessing neighborhood of southwest Philadelphia on Friday night, almost 24 hours after 16-year-old Kahree Simmons was shot and killed at a west Philadelphia recreation center. A 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy sustained graze wounds. A day earlier in a different part of west Philadelphia, 17-year-old Tamir Brown was among four people shot in an Overbrook Park parking lot. One man was killed and two others critically wounded.

On Tuesday of last week, 15-year-old Antonio Walker was shot to death in the Kingsessing neighborhood. Commissioner Danielle Outlaw last week cited his death and the Feb. 23 shooting of two people in west Philadelphia that resulted in the death of 15-year-old Embaba Mengesteabe. The suspect arrested in that case, Outlaw said, was “tragically, another 15-year-old.”

Last month, a shooting near a north Philadelphia transit station wounded eight people.

Less than an hour after the briefing wound up Wednesday afternoon, a 35-yearold man was shot four times in a northeast Philadelphia home and pronounced dead shortly afterward at a hospital. The case was classified a homicide and an arrest had been made, police said.

The 499 homicides recorded last year was the highest total in three decades and only one below the 500 recorded in 1990 — and by the time the first day of 2021 had dawned, three more people had been killed.