Philadelphia had one of its bloodiest weekends of the year, with two fatal shootings Saturday afternoon and four more that night and early Sunday.
With 306 homicides since January, the city is on track to post a higher homicide rate in 2012 than last year. That would be the third consecutive year of rising homicides.
Around noon on Saturday, police found a 26-year old man shot once in the head in a house on the 1700 block of Erie Avenue. He was pronounced dead a short time later at the scene.
Just after noon on Sunday, police investigating the first homicide found the body of a second victim, about 35 to 45 years old, who had been shot and stabbed. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have arrested a suspect whose name was not released.
Around 11 p.m. Saturday, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the head in the 2000 block of South Croskey Street in South Philadelphia. He died at the scene, police said.
In West Philadelphia around 2:40 a.m. Sunday, a fight broke out at 52d and Locust Streets. Police said Victor Rodriguez, 20, of the 900 Block of East Schiller Street, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
An off-duty Chester city police officer was at the scene and took the shooter into custody, authorities said.
Around 3 a.m., police were called to the 3000 block of North 27th Street in North Philadelphia, where a GMC Yukon had crashed into the corner of Whittier Elementary School. The driver, a 45-year-old woman, had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was trying to get to a hospital, police said. She was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital.
Around 3:40 a.m. in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia, a 35-year-old man was shot in the neck, police said. He was pronounced dead at Albert Einstein Medical Center.
Copyright 2012 - The Philadelphia Inquirer
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
