A 29-year-old woman was fatally struck by a stray bullet in Frankford, police say
Tylesha Watson was outside with friends and family — including several children — when someone in a car nearby started shooting at a group of people standing elsewhere on the block.
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A 29-year-old woman was killed Tuesday night after she was struck by a stray bullet at a barbecue in Frankford, police said.
Tylesha Watson was outside on the 1800 block of Harrison Street around 8:15 p.m. with friends and family — including several children — when someone in a car nearby started shooting at a group of people standing elsewhere on the block, said Capt. John Walker.
One of the shots struck Watson, of Kensington, in the back, police said. She was taken to Temple University Hospital and pronounced dead about 15 minutes later.
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At least 13 shots were fired, Walker said, likely from several weapons. Police were still searching for a motive. Walker said the suspects in the car drove westbound on Harrison Street in a gray Chevrolet Impala.
Walker called the shooting a “terrible situation,” saying Watson was “out there enjoying a night, barbecuing, trying to have a good time, and instead, now you’re planning a funeral for somebody who shouldn’t be dead.”
Attempts to reach Watson’s relatives Tuesday were unsuccessful.
The homicide — one of two Tuesday night — marked a continuation of the city’s gun violence crisis: 322 people have been slain in the city this year, outpacing last year’s record-setting number, police statistics show.
Mayor Jim Kenney, speaking Wednesday at a biweekly gun violence briefing, insisted the city was doing all it could in an attempt to address the violence. He said firearms are too easy to access and too often used by people in indiscriminate or reckless ways.
“It is difficult out there. It’s difficult across this entire country with the way in which guns are available to people,” Kenney said. “Even if you’re a hardened criminal and you want to shoot somebody, you don’t shoot into a crowd of people who are barbecuing, or at a block party, or at a wedding. That is the kind of mentality that I don’t know if anyone can police. But we’ll continue to plug away and do what we can to make people as safe as possible.”