Downtown Shooting Rounds Out Violent Weekend (Quagmire in Philly)

CBS 3 PHILADELPHIA ^ | 11/13/2006 | AP

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

CBS / AP) PHILADELPHIA A Philadelphia civic group and the city's top cop will hold a news conference Monday morning calling for an end to the bloodshed after an especially violent weekend.

Men United for a Better Philadelphia will join with Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson at 10 a.m. at Philadelphia's City Hall calling for a "Cease Fire" in neighborhoods plagued with violence. The location of the news conference is near the scene of one of the city's most recent shootings.

A man was wounded from gunfire in downtown Philadelphia, rounding out a deadly weekend with several unrelated fatal shootings around the city.

The downtown shooting happened Sunday afternoon at city hall, as people were crowded onto the Broad Street Subway to return from an Eagles game.

Police say a gunman shot a man in the back, then escaped onto the Market-Frankford Line. The victim was hospitalized.

A number of unrelated shootings kept both Philadelphia police and SEPTA transit police busy Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Three of the shootings turned into homicides bringing the total for the year to 354.

Just after 7 p.m. Saturday, 56-year-old Durell Marshall was shot and killed in Southwest Philadelphia.

Around 9:30 p.m. Saturday gunfire claimed the life of 18-year-old Kaire Oaks in West Philadelphia.

In Southwest Philadelphia, guns were blazing at approximately 10:30 p.m. Saturday when 21-year-old Jameel Clark was fatally wounded in West Philadelphia.

There is no one in custody in any of the three murders.

Philadelphia had 380 homicides last year and is on target to exceed that number this year.

[LenS]

Of course, they are. As the city continues to shrink, the pool of sane voters dwindles. Worse, the percentage of people who work for the city or get city contracts or handouts increases as the overall population drops, even without new hires. There's no incentive for change since most of those city workers live out on the safer edges of the city -- i.e. Somerton.

The real problem with the crime wave started a few years ago when a witness was killed and the killer was acquitted. I don't know how often after that I'd listen to the early Monday morning local TV news and find out that the victims in the Friday and Saturday night shootings had been witnesses in some trial. Only a fool would cooperate with the police or prosecutors -- it'll just get you hurt or killed.

These days, I won't even drive on I-95 through the city. It's better to loop around it.

[Thumper1960]

When a city does nothing to prevent sex acts on a city thoroughfare, in broad daylight, as people drive by and can see them clearly....there's a serious problem in that city.

Philthydelphia has major issues. It has for years and will continue to have them so long as the city is run as a Third World dysfunctional fiefdom. For residents to elect a clown like Street and expect sane people to "respect" them, is laughable...and pathetic.

[samm1148]

Yes look at its neighbor Camden in Jersey. But that will happen as long as crime is blamed on: Guns, poverty, race, etc. Anything but personal behavior. Criminals are going to be in for a rude awakening when punishment as a means of dealing with a choice of antisocial behavior is re-instituted.