Notoriety and vulnerability: What is fueling Philly’s cross-network of gang violence?

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — “It really pains me to have to gather like this once again,” then-Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters during a press conference in March 2021. He and other city officials had gathered to speak outside the Christy Recreation Center in Southwest Philadelphia after three teenagers were shot.

Two 15-year-olds were grazed while playing on the basketball court. Sixteen-year-old Kahree Simmons was struck in the neck. Police said they were all innocent bystanders — kids who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Police said a group of young males jumped out of an SUV and started shooting. Simmons fell on a bench and leaned himself up against a brick wall, gushing blood. He died less than an hour later at the hospital.

“This kid had nothing to do with anything,” said Matt Gillespie, who, at the time, was captain of the 18th Police District. The rec center falls in that jurisdiction. “He was just playing basketball, which was something I did when I was 15.”

Simmons represents a grave issue plaguing the city. He was one of 212 kids, under the age of 18, who were shot in 2021 in Philadelphia — 39 of them were killed. About 10% of all gun violence victims are kids, but that number has been rising in recent years. Teens are being shot while with their friends in the car, right outside of school, or on the basketball court, like Simmons.

“These spaces aren’t sacred anymore,” said Latanya Barrett, a leader at the school across the street from where Simmons was killed. “Children don’t really have [anywhere] left to play … because there’s such a drought in these neighborhoods that they now use these spaces to target our children and don’t care about any of the innocent bystanders or anyone that’s in their way.”

“It is not normal to pick up somebody shot almost every single day and take them to the hospital,” added Gillespie. “This is a city in America, not a war zone.”

Simmons’ case remains unsolved. While none of the three teens who were shot had a criminal history or affiliation, investigators believe the shooting was gang-related.

“We need to get used to saying gang and understanding that it is a Philadelphia-specific meaning here,” said Bill Fritze, supervisor of the Gun Violence Task Force for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

Gang affiliations are changing, Fritze said. They are no longer based on neighborhoods or family ties. Instead, they are associated outside of these perimeters, intertwined with one another.

“In Southwest [Philadelphia], some of those members moved over into another group because they were friends with them. So now you have a different gang group name, and they build these group names, and then they want notoriety from them,” he said.

That notoriety takes shape on social media, where groups brag about their guns or keep score of shootings, giving points to a gang or group for each victim.

Fritze believes these teens and young adults just want to belong to something. And typically, they have grown up in a world where violence is a constant.

“I think a lot of these kids are vulnerable,” he said. “They form these groups and these gangs [are] almost like we would look at college football — we’re scoring against the other team.”

Investigations become more difficult with the cross-network of gang violence as well as the rise in ghost guns — untraceable firearms that do not have serial numbers. In 2018, police took 13 ghost guns off the streets. In 2023, that number grew 40-fold, with police recovering 525. According to police statistics, about 120 kids were arrested in 2019 for gun possession. That number has now more than doubled.

Based on ballistics, investigators believe one of the guns used when Simmons was shot came from the direction of the rec center, meaning someone was firing back at the group of males. Some spent shell casings were found to be connected to other shootings by known gang members. Investigators did what they could to glean as much information as possible, hoping it would point them to a lead or person of interest, but so much of Simmons’ case is dependent on getting people to talk.

Gun violence continues to plague cities across the country. In Philadelphia, people are shot every day. Over the last five years, we’ve gathered interviews and stories from victims and their families, suspects, defendants, and people on the frontlines of the violence. In the fourth episode of Ricochet, we ask law enforcement: What are authorities doing to stop the bloodshed? Does Philly have a gang problem? And, where are the guns coming from?

In upcoming Ricochet episodes, hear from those who have been shot, those who lost loved ones — and even those who pulled the trigger. Follow Gone Cold: Philadelphia Unsolved Murders. Episodes will be released every Wednesday on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Article written by Rachel Kurland. Podcast written and hosted by Kristen Johanson and produced by Sabrina Boyd-Surka, with production assistant Winston Harris.

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