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5 men were shot during a late-night dice game in Logan, as Philadelphia’s gun violence continues

Police said the incident occurred around 11:39 p.m. on the 4500 block of North 19th Street, when a man wearing a red jacket began firing at people on the street.

The intersection of 4500 block of N. 19th and Wingohocking Streets in Philadelphia near the scene of a shooting late Tuesday in which police said five people were struck.
The intersection of 4500 block of N. 19th and Wingohocking Streets in Philadelphia near the scene of a shooting late Tuesday in which police said five people were struck.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer

Five men were shot late Tuesday in the city’s Logan section, according to police, continuing a months-long surge of gun violence in Philadelphia.

Police said the incident occurred around 11:40 p.m. on the 4500 block of North 19th Street, when a man wearing a red jacket began firing at people gathered outside. A police source said the victims had been playing a dice game on a front porch when the shooter started spraying bullets at them.

Authorities did not identify the suspect and said he had not been arrested. They also did not disclose a motive, saying only that the investigation was ongoing.

Deputy Police Commissioner Ben Naish said that the area had experienced some recent shootings, and police statistics show that two men were shot in separate incidents in August within a block of Tuesday’s location.

Without saying whether any of the cases were connected, Naish called the gunfire on 19th “another sad indication of what’s going on.”

The victims were between the ages of 31 and 53, said police, who did not identify any of the men. One victim, 34, was taken to Temple University Hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the stomach.

The others were hospitalized at either Temple or Einstein Medical Center in stable condition. Police said a 53-year-old man was shot in the face, a 31-year-old man was shot in the left hand, a 45-year-old man was shot in the left forearm and left foot, and a 34-year-old man was shot in the left shoulder and right finger.

It was one of three shooting incidents overnight. Police said a 34-year-old man was shot in the buttocks in North Philadelphia around 9:50 p.m., and a 23-year-old man was shot in a leg in Kensington at 11:42 p.m. Both were hospitalized in stable condition, police said. No one was arrested in either case.

The gunfire in Logan was the latest multi-victim incident in the past several days. Over the weekend, police reported two quadruple shootings.

Through Monday, police statistics say, 216 people had been shot in the city in September, the fourth consecutive month in which Philadelphia has recorded at least 200 shooting victims. Before July, the city had not seen a month with 200 shooting victims in at least 13 years.

There have been six days in September in which at least 10 people were shot, according to police statistics, including Friday, when 15 people were shot.

In all, 1,569 people have been shot in the city this year, more than the annual total for any year since 2007, when the city recorded 1,597 victims.

Staff writer Mike Newall contributed to this article.