Survivors of gun violence hope a noon march in Center City will publicize a message: Get illegal handguns off the streets. It could also block traffic on a busy stretch of Broad Street. People in wheelchairs will be part of the procession, from Magee Rehabilitation Hospital at 16th and Race Streets to the State Office Building at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, where a rally will be held. Permits to march up Broad Street have been requested, but may not be officially approved until just before the event, a spokesperson for Handgun Sanity said this morning. The demonstration is to […]

A man was found in the trunk of a car in Grays Ferry early this morning, police said. The man was found wrapped in a blanket in the trunk of a Cadillac in the 1200 block of South 27th Street at 1:51 a.m. He was officially pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 4 a.m. Police were unable to provide more details this morning, such as how long the body had been in the trunk or how the body was discovered. [via PHILLY.COM]

INQUIRER: A 15-year-old who reportedly lunged at police with a clothing iron was fatally shot this afternoon by an officer who responded to an emergency call for help from the teen’s mother in their Crescentville home, police said. Vanore said that at about 1:30 p.m., police responded to a 911 call for help on a domestic disturbance at a residence in the 600 block of Brill Street. Shortly after arriving, there was a confrontation with the teen, who “had an object in his hand that he was using as a weapon,” Vanore said. A police source said the object was […]

INQUIRER: Early this morning, a man was shot dead on the 3900 block of Aspen Street in the city’s Mantua section, police said. The homicide was the fourth in the city since Friday. Early Saturday morning, a boy and a man were killed outside a North Philadelphia nightclub, and last night a man was arrested for fatally stabbing his brother yesterday. This morning’s victim was Theodore Jenkins, 36, who lived on the 3900 block of Reno Street, a few blocks north of Aspen. He was found at about 1:47 a.m., shot several times in the torso, and was pronounced dead […]

BLOOMBERG NEWS: Oct. 4 PHILADELPHIA — Two guards for Securitas AB’s Loomis cash-handling unit were killed during the robbery of an armored car this morning in the northeastern part of Philadelphia, police said. The robbery happened at about 8 a.m. local time in the parking lot of a Wachovia Bank branch near Bustleton and Bleigh avenues in the city’s Rhawnhurst section, Officer Tanya Little said in a telephone interview. MORE INQUIRER: An intensive manhunt is underway in the Northeast for a lone gunman who shot dead two Loomis armored-truck guards and wounded another in a robbery attempt. The men who […]

Early yesterday morning, a North Philadelphia man died after being shot multiple times near Eighth and Somerset Streets. Brian Harvin, 27, lived in the 2800 block of North Darien Street. He was shot about 1:45 a.m. and pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital about a half-hour later. Early Saturday morning, a man died after being shot after being shot in the head on the the 200 block of Ramsey Street in West Philadelphia. Nalin Tilghman, 29, lived in the 5800 block of Cedarhurst Avenue, also in West Philadelphia. The shooting happened shortly after 2 a.m., and Tilghman was pronounced dead […]

INQUIRER: The year’s homicide count in Philadelphia reached 300 this morning after two people were found dead this morning, police said. Shortly after midnight, a young man was gunned down in North Philadelphia. About 9:30 a.m., a woman was found beaten to death in her North Philadelphia home. The shooting happened at 12:05 a.m. on the 2500 block of North 17th Street in North Philadelphia, police said. Steven Gates, 25, was shot multiple times, and was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m., according to Sgt. William Gallagher. Gates lived on the 2900 block […]

Today on NPR’s Here & Now, heard locally on WHYY, host Robin Young interviewed Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson about his call to raise a 10,000 man army of voluntary crisis interventionists to help defuse the violence before it starts on the blocks where they live. Young quotes PW’s Kia Gregory calling on Johnson to resign to the Commish, to which he responds “I don’t care what Kia Gregory thinks.” Young continues to quote from Gregory’s work, citing the fact that several hundred beat cops have been pulled off the street and put in desk jobs during the Commish’s reign. […]

INQUIRER: Kenneth Groce, 14, surrendered to Philadelphia police yesterday and was charged with the Friday afternoon stabbing death of Jeremiah Smith in North Philadelphia, said Lt. Philip Riehl of the Homicide Division.Riehl said Groce and Smith, 17, got into a fight around 6:40 p.m. and Smith was stabbed and collapsed at a door in the 2300 block of Edgley Street in North Philadelphia. Police recovered a bloody knife at the scene; Smith died about an hour later at Temple University Hospital. MORE

DAILY NEWS: In the darkness Thursday night, Esther Schultz ran into the kind of criminals who give this city a bad name. Schultz, 25, parked her car on 24th Street near Parrish, in Fairmount, at about 9 p.m. and started walking toward her house, chatting with her mother on a cell phone along the way. A car pulled up alongside her and a man jumped out and tried to steal her purse, police said. The man knocked Schultz, a therapist for Keystone Hospice, to the ground. Police said a female passenger shouted, “Shoot the bitch! Shoot the bitch!” and the […]

Shortly before 3 a.m. yesterday, Nicholas Bonilla, 41, was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the torso in the 3100 block of North Front Street. Bonilla, of the 3200 block of Frankford Avenue, was taken to Temple University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m., police said. * About 4 a.m. Friday, Herbert Purnell, 48, was found in the 1800 block of Cornwall Street with multiple gunshot wounds to the legs. Purnell, who lived in the same block, was taken to Temple and pronounced dead at 6:34 a.m. No arrests have been made in either case, and […]

The official call is going out — 10,000 African-American men are being called to become community peacekeepers. Recording mogul Kenny Gamble has met with Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and other business leaders to organize the movement, called in part “It’s a New Day.” “The number one priority of our community now is the safety of our women, our children and our elderly. So it’s a call to action for African-American men to take the responsibility of bringing a different quality of life to our community.” The effort will begin October 21st with a gathering of volunteers at Temple’s Liacouras Center. […]

INQUIRER: When gunfire erupted in Olney about 1 a.m., Malcolm McLaughlin kept driving his SEPTA bus even though a bullet had struck him in the back, a SEPTA official said. A bullet also hit one of the bus’ nine passengers in the hand.McLaughlin was driving the Route K bus from East Falls to Frankford, when two men started shooting at each other near Front and Champlost Streets. “He was able to drive that bus about five blocks after being injured and keep the rest of the passangers safe,” said SEPTA spokesman Felipe Suarez. “So it’s a pretty heroic story if […]