Two more people, including a teenager, were shot in Philadelphia overnight bringing the total number of gunshot victims in just over 24 hours to 13.
Police responded to the 400 block of Cheltenham Avenue in the Lawncrest section of the city around 11:30 p.m. Sunday to find a 15-year-old suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, arms and legs. Medics rushed the boy to Einstein Medical Center where doctors listed him in critical condition but expected him to survive, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said.
"This (boy) was shot right in front of his house while family members were sitting on the front steps… enjoying the evening," Small said.
About 10 shell casings littered the sidewalk outside the boy’s home, investigators said, believing there were two shooters.
As police investigated the teen’s shooting, they were called to N 19th and W Jefferson streets in North Philadelphia were a man was also shot.
The overnight shootings brought the bloody total for Saturday night into early Monday to 13 shot and four dead.
A man shot one of his neighbors and the victim's girlfriend to death in the Frankford section of Lower Northeast Philadelphia and another man died in a multiple-victim shooting in southwest Center City as gunfire erupted throughout the city Sunday morning.
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The Frankford shooting left a 69-year-old resident of the 4700 block of James Street being questioned by detectives. He claimed the shooting was in self defense.
A man also died in a quadruple shooting early Sunday at 22nd and Fitzwater streets in Southwest Center City. Responding officers found four gunshot victims stretched over two blocks of Fitzwater from 20th to 22nd streets.
"We woke up at like midnight last night and heard about 11 gunshots, like one after another, and then we just ducked behind our bed for like 15 minutes," Cassie McGoldrick told NBC10.
All of the victims, including the dead man who was 28, are in their 20s.
Another person died around 7:30 a.m. Saturday when officers found the man face down in a parking lot on S 4th Street just north of Washington Avenue. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Gunfire also rang out early Sunday during an apparent robbery at N 29th Street and Ridge Avenue, at a strip mall along Harbison Avenue near Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia along Kingsessing Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia and on Cumberland Street in the Fairhill neighborhood.
None of the people involved in any of the shootings was immediately identified by police.
The deadly shootings added to a trend of an uptick in killings in the city. As of Sunday, there were 168 homicides in Philadelphia, up 20 percent from this same time last year and the highest total of homicides in Philadelphia at this date since 2012.
"This is just indicative of the wanton violence that we deal with, particularly in these big cities, with young men, in particular, resolving their conflicts with guns," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said. "We spend a lot of time trying to keep young men alive."
Police continue to work on strategies to curb the deadly violence.
"We will never throw our hands up, we will continue to find new ways to work with our partners and collaborate as well as develop new strategies," Ross said.
