Early this morning, a North Philadelphia man became the city’s 165th homicide victim of 2007. A few minutes after midnight, Keith McCoray, 23, was found outside with gunshot wounds to the chest and foot on the 2500 blook of North 25th Street, police said. INQUIRER: #165 A Done Deal

A 16-year-old boy was killed in a barrage of gunfire in the 2300 block of Watkins Street in South Philadelphia shortly after 4 p.m. Friday. The victim – homicide 163 – was identified as Rhamik Thomas of the 1700 block of Natrona Street in North Philadelphia. “Somebody walked up to him and gunned him down, using a 9mm gun,” Williams said. Police said more than 20 shots were fired at Thomas, who was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at 4:42 p.m. “We got a call of a man with a gun, and when we got […]

A triple shooting left one man dead in Germantown last night. Police said a gunman opened fire on Henley Street near West Manheim shortly after 8 p.m. A 29-year-old man, whose name was not released, was hit multiple times and died at Albert Einstein Medical Center at 8:38 p.m. Two unidentified men — one 21 years old and the other 29 — were wounded. Both men were listed in stable condition at area hospitals. DAILY NEWS: One Less German In Germantown OVERHEARD: “This is a lot more about community, about the lack of any centering force within the black community, […]

BY SIMONE WECHSELBAUM OF THE DAILY NEWS In the age of Stop Snitchin’, Philadelphia’s embattled law-enforcement community has found that federal court is the path to justice by circumventing tight-lipped thugs and wary witnesses who jam the wheels of the criminal-justice system.The feds only need one of three things to build a case — a convicted felon caught with a gun or bullets; an individual apprehended with both a gun and a sizable amount of drugs; a person arrested for armed robbery in a store selling products made in another state and/or transported across state borders. “When we have a felon […]

BY MARK FAZLOLLAH & JOHN SHIFFMAN INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Hundreds of guns seized by Upper Darby police are back in circulation, many after police supplied them to two of the region’s most notorious gun shops, The Inquirer has learned. These guns included illegal sawed-off shotguns and assault rifles. Just last month, special-education students found one of Upper Darby’s confiscated guns as they collected litter near their school. One of the dealers who sold Upper Darby’s weapons is now in prison for selling guns to felons. “I don’t care if you kill a cop,” he told an undercover federal agent wearing […]

  KYW REPORTER STEVE TAWA: “Commissioner, do you have a point of view on ‘Stop and Frisk,’ during the campaign. The councilman was talked about using it, while declaring a crime emergency.” PHILADELPHIA POLICE COMMISSIONER SYLVESTER JOHNSON: “I’m against that, but that’s his decision to make.” [via KYW] *** THE NATION: As a political matter, Nutter would be wise to maintain his professed flexibility. Though he won the primary with 37 percent of the vote, even some of his most vocal supporters have questioned the wisdom of his stop-and-frisk plan. “We have a ways to go before being sold on […]

Police internal affairs and the homicide division have taken over the investigation into a police-involved shooting early Tuesday morning in South Philadelphia. Philadelphia police were called to the 1200 block of South 19th Street at the turn of midnight Tuesday when neighbors reported a man screaming. As officers arrived on the scene, authorities say, a man [NOT pictured] exited a home and approached them, pointing a shotgun. Despite warnings, the man refused to drop his weapon. Police fired one shot that struck the suspect. He was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he died. KYW: Guns […]

Police chalked up the city’s 137th homicide of the year Sunday around 1:30am in the city’s East Germantown section following a triple shooting. Officers have been busy interviewing a number of people. Shots rang out in the 1900 block of Stenton Avenue just outside Charlie’s Little Spot bar. It was a triple shooting that left a 31-year-old woman dead and two men wounded. KYW: Drunks + Guns = Last Call

Three men suspected of funneling illegal guns to the streets of Philadelphia were arrested yesterday and charged. In announcing the indictment of the trio, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said investigators were trying to trace the weapons they sold to an undercover agent back to their legal origins to determine whether they had been stolen or purchased for black-market sale. The undercover agent purchased 22 guns – including 15 semiautomatic pistols – during the sting operation set up by a task force involving the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Philadelphia police, and the state police. INQUIRER: Smells Like […]

[S]everal gun-rights proponents unfurled a banner saying that State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.) should be hanged for introducing legislation that would require people to register their guns and pay a $10 fee to the state police. “People want to hang me for doing my job,” Cruz said, adding that his bill was aimed at trying to reduce gun violence in his district. His bill outraged gun-owner groups that used its introduction this month to mobilize members for a rally yesterday at the Capitol. Rally organizers had hoped to promote bills to ease restrictions on gun purchases, but anger over […]

For the fourth time in six months, the Democratic mayoral candidate yesterday called for Mayor Street to respond to the city’s climbing homicide rate by declaring a crime emergency. That would allow police to be sent into specified neighborhoods, Nutter said, to crack down on illegal weapons and to arrest probation and parole violators. Street rejected Nutter’s advice. Mayoral spokesman Joe Grace said the police already are working energetically against gun-related violence but would not set different rules for police activity in high-crime neighborhoods. “Something must be done,” Nutter told reporters on the sidewalk outside City Hall. “If we’re serious […]

Despite a new round of pleas last week to stop the violence, the killing in Philadelphia did not abate. At least eight people were fatally wounded by gunshots from Friday night through noon today, and at least 6 people were injured. The homicide number climbed to 124, with weekend shootings that spiked with the higher temperatures. Six of the latest homicides occurred on city streets, while two happened inside apartments and one took place at a neighborhood barbecue in West Philadelphia. INQUIRER: Seems Neighborhood Forums, Candlelight Vigils And Good Intentions Don’t Do Dick

Philadelphia police at a community meeting Wednesday evening on Germantown Avenue, suddenly found themselves on the scene of a shootout just outside the building in Nicetown. It was just after 6:30 when shots rang out outside the meeting hall. Some attendees fell to the floor. But Captain John McCloskey and officer Vince Laspina rushed outside, virtually into the middle of the gun battle on a busy Germantown Avenue: “Bullets that hit close to a car that was parked near where I was at. You could hear one of the bullets kind of like ‘ping’ off the wall where we were […]