PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia has set a new, grim record for homicides in one year.
A man was found dead just after 8:30 p.m. Friday in the East Mount Airy section. That brings the city's total number of homicides this year to 501.
According to police, the 30-year-old man was found lying next to a car on Ardleigh Street near East Mt. Pleasant Avenue. He was shot five times — three times in the armpit, once in the hip and once in the head — and taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
No arrests have been made.
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The city's previous record for most homicides in a single year was 500, in 1990. Philadelphia reached that mark Wednesday afternoon, when a 55-year-old woman was shot three times in the chest in South Philly.
15-year-olds Antonio Walker Jr., Kahree Simmons and Simone Monea-Rogers, were just three of the nearly 40 children killed this year in Philadelphia.
That number has more than doubled from just two years ago, when there were 18 kids killed.
The number of female victims nearly doubled, from 36 in 2020 to 60 this year. Morgan Braxton, Jessica Covington, Maria Rosado, Constance Marshall and Irene McNair are just a handful of the five-dozen women killed. Most were shot.
Covington, who was pregnant, was gunned down outside her Lawncrest home. Her unborn child also died.
The largest group of victims are Black men between the ages of of 25 and 34 years old. So far this year, 150 of them died, including Joshua Butts, Khalief Baxter and Kareem Killen.
The second largest group is Black men between 18 and 24 years old — like 22-year-old Khaliyl Gilbert, a beloved son and brother who wanted to become a police officer. He was shot and killed in October.
Police have attributed most of the violence to arguments and drug-related issues.
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