PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Two more people were gunned down in Philadelphia Friday night, and two others were injured. Four teenagers have died from shootings this week alone, and city officials and community activists say they are beyond frustrated.
Police said a 17-year-old was shot and killed at a basketball court at 58th Street and Kingsessing Avenue, the fourth teenager killed this week. So far this year, there have been at least 96 homicides, up 35% from last year, which was the most violent year in decades.
Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said police are currently investigating multiple shootings and there is a common theme that keeps coming up.
"Opposing groups shoot at their rivals and then post about it on social media, and then the problem persists. It goes on and on, retaliation after retaliation," he explained. "This seems to be part of an ongoing Instagram war which has no signs of letting up."
Community activist and pastor Carl Day told NBC 10 people need to start caring about each other or the violence will never stop.
"It sounds very cliche, but the truth of the matter is it's hard to ask people to care for each other, if they see crimes to report crimes, or care about helping the conditions of each other if they don't know each other," he said.
"When is enough going to be enough on our end?"
Mayor Jim Kenney and city officials are growing increasingly frustrated as well, though Kenney says he isn't considering any sort of curfew right now to slow down the violence because that would punish too many innocent people.
