PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia police revealed new details, Monday, about a misdirected 911 call that kept them from finding the first victim of a gunman in Kingsessing, more than a day before he went on a rampage in the same neighborhood, killing four more people and wounding four others.
“We now know that the timeline of the defendant’s action stretch back to early Sunday morning, July 2,” Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference.
Kimbrady Carriker, 40 is accused of opening fire in the 1600 block of South 56th Street on July 3, but Outlaw acknowledged that 911 received a call around 2 a.m. on July 2, reporting gunshots on that block.
“This call was dispatched, however, to the 1600 block of North 56th Street,” she said — some three miles away. She said responding officers found no evidence of a shooting, and the call was dismissed as unfounded.
It wasn’t until after the rampage on Monday, July 3, that police discovered the body of Joseph Wamah, 31, located after relatives went to check on him. He’d been shot with the same weapon as the other victims, and police assumed he’d been shot immediately before or after the others.
As investigators assembled video evidence of the mass shooting, though, they saw no sign that Carriker had gone to Wamah’s house, Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said. They recanvassed the neighborhood and interviewed a neighbor who told them she’d called 911 on July 2.
Vanore said it took some time to locate the call, because the location was wrong and, by that time, the Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that Wamah had been dead for about 44 hours before the July 3 shooting.
With that information, Vanore said, the investigators found video of Wamah’s shooting. In the video, Vanore said, the shooter is seen approaching the house about 12:30 a.m. yelling “Sheriff.”
“There’s an encounter at the door,” Vanore said. “I don’t know if there’s a knock, but there’s ballistic evidence in the grass, a little bit on the porch, and then four casings inside the house.”
He said the figure in the video matches Carriker’s description, but he is wearing a mask and dark clothing and would have been impossible to identify.
On July 3, around 8 p.m., Carriker is suspected of opening fire in the neighborhood with an AR-15, and randomly killing four more people, including a teenager, officials say. A 2-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy were also shot and are expected to physically recover, and the 2-year-old’s twin brother and their mother were wounded by shattered glass.
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Outlaw said there is an administrative investigation into the 911 call, and new policies are already in place to prevent a similar mistake.
“For example, if there is a priority one call, before it’s closed out as unfounded, we have a higher ranking person to review to make sure it is unfounded, that we’ve exhausted all measures,” she said.
Outlaw said that the 911 call came in 90 minutes after Wamah’s shooting so it’s unlikely police could have saved his life, even if they’d been sent to the correct address, “given that the nature of the injuries was so severe.”
But might it have led police to the suspect, and could it have prevented him from returning to that block and killing four more people the next day?
“I caution individuals from going down that rabbit hole,” Outlaw said Monday.
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“While it would have given us an investigative lead, the likelihood of cutting off what happened later on … we just don’t know,” Outlaw said.
She acknowledged, though, that the new information “compounds the tragedy.”
In a statement released Sunday, July 9, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said the new information from police has not changed the number or type of charges filed. Carriker is charged with five counts of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.