DAILY NEWS: Episodes of violence in the city this weekend struck people at their homes, their jobs and even within their own families. On Friday alone, a man killed his mother with his bare hands, two home invasions resulted in slayings and a feud between two barbers ended with fatal gunfire, according to police. In separate incidents on Saturday, two babies, neither of whom was a full year into life, were taken to area hospitals with serious and suspicious injuries. One of the children did not survive, police said. In that case, the father, whose name was not released, is […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: In today’s edition of the Daily News, Dana DiFilippo takes an in-depth look at the shadowy world of illegal gun-trading, how weapons get in the hands of the young and the reckless and the damage done. One of the names that figures in the story is Nazir Gary, aka ‘Nazzy,’ who was gunned down in 2007 and subsequently became one of the subjects of Jeff Deeney’s VALLEY OF THE SHADOW series on Phawker. The following is an excerpt from DiFilippo’s must-read story and the installment of VOS that ran back in 2007. DAILY NEWS: In the life of […]

INQUIRER: Meleanie Hain, the soccer mom who openly sported a holstered Glock 26 at a daughter’s games, and her husband, Scott, were found dead of gunshot wounds last night at their Lebanon, Pa., home, according to police. “Some media outlets have gone to the stretch of calling it a murder-suicide,” said Chief Daniel Wright. “The coroner’s office and the police are calling it a death investigation.” Police believe no one else was involved, however, Wright said. “Daddy shot Mommy!” was yelled by children running from the Hain house early last evening, neighbors told the Lebanon Daily News. The Hains’ three […]

DAILY NEWS: The city’s homicide rate has fallen 30 percent from the grim total it had registered by this point in 2007, when the constant deluge of murders led to the loathsome local nickname “Killadelphia.” According to police statistics, 162 homicides have been recorded so far this year, compared with 183 a year ago, and 234 in 2007. The city had 333 homicides all of last year, a 15 percent drop from the 392 slayings in ’07. The homicide rate — which soared at a time earlier this decade when homicides in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles were reaching […]

INQUIRER: Father’s Day ended violently yesterday with four people — two women, a 50-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy — gunned down about two hours apart in different parts of the city. The first shooting happened at 7:21 p.m. in the 2200 block of Wanamaker Street in the city’s Overbrook section. Police said they believed a 60-year-old man shot two women, a 31-year-old who died at the scene and the other, described as the shooter’s 55-year-old girlfriend, who was declared dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Their names were not released. According to neighbors, the man shot […]

INQUIRER: Homicide detectives were investigating three killings in Philadelphia that occurred late Monday and early yesterday. Rasheed Rose, 36, was shot multiple times at 10:14 p.m. Monday in the 1400 block of South 21st Street in the city’s Point Breeze neighborhood. He was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m. A 17-year-old youth was fatally shot in the 1900 block of South 56th Street in Southwest Philadelphia at 1:11 a.m. yesterday. He was pronounced dead at 1:51 a.m. at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At 2:34 a.m., police responded to a shooting in […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Police say a Philadelphia homicide detective was jogging on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge when she was mugged by a man on a bicycle. Officials say the 28-year-old detective encountered the man on the bridge between Philadelphia and Camden, N.J., early Tuesday. He snatched a gold chain from her neck and threw her cell phone in the Delaware River. Police say the two struggled, and the man produced a handgun and struck the policewoman several times on the head. MORE RELATED: Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has resigned as chairman of the Delaware River Port Authority, the two-state agency that […]

INQUIRER: A teenage boy was shot four times — twice in the head, once in the chest and once in the back — this afternoon outside one of the city’s disciplinary schools in Feltonville. Initial information was sketchy, but this much was known: The victim, described only as a 16-year-old male, was shot a by another male teenager — wearing a black hoodie — who escaped running through a nearby cemetery. The victim is described as being in “extremely critical condition,” by a police spokesperson. MORE

INQUIRER: Another Philadelphia police officer has been gunned down in the line of duty, this time in an apparent shoot-out tonight in front of the Olney Transportation Center. Initial reports were that he was wounded after he and his partner responded to a report of a “fight on the highway” on Broad Street near Olney Street. Officer John Pawlowski, 25, who was assigned to the 35th Police District, was the first to be killed in the line of duty this year. The newly married whose wife is expecting their first child is the fourth city officer to be fatally shot […]

DAILY NEWS: Police arrested a 15-year-old boy who they say was behind the wheel of his parents’ Ford Expedition on Christmas Eve when he plowed it into 73-year-old William Wrigley, killing him, and then kept driving. Police said that he turned himself in yesterday after an arrest warrant was issued more than a week ago. Authorities have not released the identity of the teen suspect, pending whether he’s charged as an adult when he appears in a court hearing today, a police source said. About 9:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Wrigley, of Frankford Avenue near Sedgely, was crossing the intersection […]

INQUIRER: A 34-year-old man, who lived in an apartment above the restaurant he owned – Wings and Things – in the 2300 block of South 65th Street, was killed as he returned home at 1:47 a.m., said Lt. Mark Deegan of the police department’s homicide division. Two men confronted him in a robbery attempt. He resisted and was shot more than once in the chest. He was pronounced dead at 2:08 a.m. at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The man’s name has not been released because relatives have not yet been notified. No arrests have been made. Shortly after […]

INQUIRER: At a news conference today at Philadelphia Police Headquarters, authorities released new information about a triple shooting this morning on the 3300 block of Mutter Street in Hunting Park that left a 19-year-old woman dead and her husband and young son seriously injured. The injured boy is a 5-year-old who was shot twice, police said. There was another child, 2, inside the house when the gunfire erupted, but that toddler was not injured. Two assailants entered the rowhouse through the basement. They found the four members of the family – a 20-year-old father, 19-year-old mother, and the two young children — […]

INQUIRER: Police found the body of an unidentified man inside a parked car North Philadelphia shortly after 12 a.m. today. The man, who was shot in the left chest area and the arm, was discovered in the 4600 block of North 16th Street, police said. He was pronounced dead at Einstein Medical Center. The investigation is continuing and no other details were available. MORE ALSO: A man who was carjacked in Hunting Parkon Friday remained in Temple University Hospital in serious condition today with a single gunshot wound to his buttocks, according to city police information officer Christine O’Brien. The […]