PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia is seeing its third consecutive year of record-high gun violence. There have been more than 500 homicides in each of the last two years. One of the most urgent questions in this year’s mayoral race: What will it take to reverse that trend?
In just the first three months of this year, 105 people have been killed. Three-dozen kids under age 18 have been shot, and seven have died — including 15-year-old Devin Weedon, who was shot and killed last week as he was walking to school, and 15-year-old Neko Rivera, who was chased and shot 10 times just a few blocks from Samuel Fels High School. Both killings remain unsolved.
“We know that, in both cases that I am thinking of, up in the Northeast and the one outside Simon Gratz, we see people around that same age perpetrating the crime too,” said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore. “It’s unfortunate, but we think robbery may have been the motive there and in ones that happened outside Fels a little while ago, that could be targeted that ended in violence.”
Authorities say the most common motive seems to be arguments.
“We are really seeing a lot of arguments,” Vanore said. “You see right on the street, or something that may have started out as a domestic type of argument and we categorize them — could be a love triangle — a fist fight that turns into a gun violence incident.”
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Investigators from both Homicide and the Shooting Investigation Unit are trying to identify pockets of groups who may be involved — hoping to clear cases and prevent retaliation shootings — Vanore said.
“Sometimes a non-fatal shooting, two or three days later, could lead to another or be related to another shooting or a homicide.”
Police reported seeing the most gun violence in the 22nd and 35th districts in the north and the 15th in the northeast — with the 19th in the west close behind. Most of the shooting victims are male. About 10% are female.
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What’s to be done?
Community leaders say the next mayor must do more to make the lives of people of color a priority.
“You’ve got to come out of City Hall. You got to get from behind the desk, you got to come down here on the street, in the communities, where this stuff is happening,” says Mazzie Casher, with Philly Truce.
“So if the next mayor can swallow that, they'll do more than curb or end violence, they will, you know, change the trajectory of the history of Philadelphia,” Casher said.
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Another concern is the rising number of children at the center of the crisis.
“I think, first off, we need to address what the next generation is going to look like,” said Rosalilnd Pichardo, founder of Operation Save our City. She lost her twin sister and her boyfriend to gun violence, and she survived an attempted homicide.
Pichardo says kids often ask her why it’s so easy for someone to get a gun. She asks another valid question: “How can we stop the illegal gun trafficking in our city?”
“I live in Kensington, and there was a big bust with ghost guns,” she said. “How do we put that on the forefront so they know — hey, we're watching, we're aware of what's happening.”
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Pichardo says she also supports having more police officers who resemble the communities they serve.
“Some of the police officers they put in my community, they don't look like us — and some of these kids are looking at some of these police officers as outsiders.”
Stanley Crawford, president of the Black Male Community Council of Philadelphia, lost his son to gun violence. He says the next mayor must show genuine care and compassion for the Black community.
“A lot of times, I see them playing party politics — money, property and prestige politics, corporate politics — and I don't see them having the humanity when it comes specifically the pain and agony that the Black community is suffering after each murder,” Crawford said, adding that more murders need to be solved.
For example, he says, the same energy that’s put forth to solve a police officer’s murder should be shown to solve everyone’s murder.
“So by not solving murders, you become complicit in promoting murder indirectly. If some of these murderers were caught and prosecuted, then the word would go out in the city of Philadelphia that you cannot murder people and get away with it!”
But the number of homicide victims is down about 15% from this time last year, and shootings are down nearly 20% for the same time period.
Vanore says Philadelphia police are solving more cases.
"The clearance rate in homicide is just over 64%, almost 65%. And the non-fatal shooting rate, which is calculated differently, is just over 25% for 400 nonfatal shootings.
Adam Garber with Ceasefire PA, says the city needs a better plan to manage its anti-violence programs — a sharper focus on the nitty-gritty of what it actually takes to make change,
“They're going to have to hire the right people and dig in the nuts and bolts and demand timely engagement and implementation of everything from ready and targeted workforce development … to improving the way we're coordinating our credible messenger programs across the city,” Garber said.
The advocates agree that it’s as much about picking the right policy as it is about leaders making the crisis their top priority.
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The Rev. Robert Collier, president of Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, stood with other Black clergy members on Thursday on the front steps of Zion Baptist Church on North Broad Street to announce a citywide summit on gun violence next month.
“The next mayor must have the interest of the community, he must have a love for everyone in the community, and he needs to put a priority on saving the lives of young people,” Collier said.
All of the mayoral candidates have some sort of plan to combat the issue. Some support expanding background checks for gun ownership, and increasing funding for the Police Department. Others would like to see an increase in community policing, support a crackdown on assault rifles and want to make controversial stop-and-frisk police tactics more prevalent.