Four people are lucky to be alive after a pair of apparently unrelated shootings in the Northeast late Monday and early Tuesday left them each hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds.
Police said that an unknown gunman fired at least 17 rounds at a pair of 32-year-old men outside a house on the 4600 block of Kendrick St. in Upper Holmesburg at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to broadcast reports. The targets reportedly tried to flee into a house that was occupied by several adults and a young child. One of the targets suffered wounds of the torso and leg, while the other suffered wounds to each leg. Both were taken to Aria Health-Torresdale and listed in stable condition on Tuesday.
Chief Inspector Scott Small reportedly told NBC10 that a motive is not known but that the ambush may have been drug-related. Some of the slugs struck homes. The assailant remains at large.
“That’s a lot of shots to shoot on the streets of Philadelphia,” Small said, according to CBS3. “It appears that this individual just emptied his semiautomatic gun and fired every shot, every shot that he had.”
Less than an hour earlier, a woman was wounded nine times and her male companion three times in another ambush outside a Castor Gardens pharmacy, but both survived.
The attack occurred at Rite Aid, 6515 Castor Ave., at about 11:45 p.m. Monday. NBC10 reported that the victims are engaged to be married and were outside the business when a lone gunman approached them and fired at least a dozen rounds, striking the woman, 46, in the abdomen, both legs and right ankle, and her 65-year-old fiance in the abdomen.
“The ballistic evidence is just several feet away from where both of these victims were laying side by side in the street, so we know that the shooter fired these shots from point-blank range,” Small said, according to CBS3.
Both victims were taken to Aria Health-Torresdale and listed in stable condition Tuesday. Investigators reportedly found the weapon on the 6100 block of Algon Ave. Police said that the shooter is known to the male victim, but he remains at-large. Police did not disclose a suspected motive. ••
