The City of Philadelphia was the site of a violent Memorial Day weekend that left 12 people dead and several more shot. The city has now surpassed 200 homicides on the year.
The first fatality was recorded early Saturday morning when a 30-year-old man was found with multiple gunshot wounds. He died a short time later at an area hospital, according to Fox 29 Philadelphia.
Several hours later, another man was killed while two women were injured in the city’s Germantown neighborhood. A double shooting in Kensington soon left another man dead early Saturday evening.
Sunday was a particularly deadly day, as police were first dispatched to a triple shooting in Logan, where two teens and a 63-year-old man were all injured. Police would go on to respond to at least eight more shootings over the course of the day that left five dead and nine others injured.
Two of the victims, a 37-year-old man and his nine-year-old son, were killed in a drive-by shooting in West Philadelphia.
Question to @phillypolice detective: Did killers see 9 year old boy in car with his dad before they fired 30 plus shots at them? “They were sitting there in dark suv on Carver St waiting to shoot. As soon as dad,37, parked Nissan Sentra they fired onto it @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/tdmetLxons
— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) May 30, 2022
Philadelphia’s violent Memorial Day weekend continued through the early hours of Monday morning when two were killed while two others were injured after a party turned deadly in Port Richmond.
Police later recovered 70 shell casings from another shooting that took later in the day. A 25-year-old was killed in the shooting and another man was shot seven times. One of the suspected shooters was taken into custody, but police believe there were at least four others.
As of Monday night, the city has recorded 207 homicides in 2022. The homicide rate had experienced a brief period of decline since February, but now appears to be trending back up as the particularly deadly summer months loom.
Philadelphia surpassed Chicago last year and now has the largest per-capita murder rate among America’s 10 largest cities. The city currently ranks 14th in the nation in homicides per-capita.
In the windy city, six people were killed due to gun violence over the weekend. New York recorded four homicides over the same time period.
In Philadelphia, the city seems poised to reach the deadly benchmark of 500 homicides for the second time in as many years. 2021 was the deadliest year in the city’s history.