7 wounded, one critically, in two drive-by shootings in North Philly neighborhood: ‘It’s senseless and very scary.’
The shootings took place around 3:30 a.m. in the area around Fotterall Square at 11th and Cumberland Streets in Hartranft, including at a house where a party was taking place.
Seven people were wounded, one critically, in what a witness described as a couple of drive-by shootings early Saturday morning in North Philadelphia’s Hartranft neighborhood.
The shootings took place around 3:30 a.m. in the area of Fotterall Square at 11th and Cumberland Streets, police said.
A 16-year-old girl was shot in the chest and listed in critical condition at Temple University Hospital.
All the other victims were listed in stable condition at the hospital: a 22-year-old man shot in the back; a 20-year-old man shot in the right arm and hand; a 21-year-old woman shot in the left thigh; a 25-year-old man shot in the right arm; a 30-year-old woman shot in the left arm; and a 23-year-old woman shot in the back.
State police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were at the scene throughout Saturday morning. Chalk circles to mark where bullet casings had fallen covered the corner at 11th and Cumberland, while investigators canvassed the 2500 block of North Jessup Street.
Police said that two men had gotten into an argument at a party on Cumberland Street that had been organized on Instagram. Afterward, people started leaving the party, but one of the men returned to the block with a gun and fired at those who remained, police said.
A teenager who had been attending the party that night said a car had circled the block several times before someone inside opened fire on the corner.
Then the car pulled up outside a house on Jessup Street and, again, someone inside fired at a group of partygoers on the front steps, the teen said.
One girl stumbled into the house, screaming for help. “I didn’t know what was wrong with her, and then she collapsed,” said a witness who asked not to be identified out of concern for her safety.
Then they realized the girl had been shot in the chest and called police as other partygoers fled, screaming, down the block.
Some neighbors on the block said parties are a regular occurrence at homes at the end of the street near Fotterall Square, and some have called police to break up the gatherings.
Still, said Kareem Nixon, who lives up the block: “I’ve never known it to get like where it ended up — in a shooting. It’s just kids having fun until this happens. It’s senseless and very scary.”
The block had also been rattled by a recent homicide at the other end of the street, neighbors said.
No arrests had been made in Saturday’s shootings, but police said they found a weapon as well as bullet casings from several different guns.
Gun violence in Philadelphia has been decreasing. In September, police reported just 10 homicides, the lowest in a single month since April 2015. This year, the city has seen about 21 homicides per month, compared with an average of 44 homicides per month between 2020 and 2022.
The city has seen a number of mass shootings this year, however. In June, a teenage girl was killed and four others were injured in a shooting at a party in Fairmount Park. At a July Fourth gathering in Kingsessing, one man was killed and eight others were injured when a gunman opened fire on a pop-up party organized on social media. Weeks later, three people were killed and six injured in a shooting at a cookout in West Philadelphia.