For a third weekend in a row, gunfire leaves multiple victims wounded in Philly

For the third consecutive weekend in Philadelphia, shooters wounded multiple victims while firing guns into crowds.

“People are using guns and they are indiscriminately shooting,” Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said Monday.

As with so many of the statistics reflecting Philadelphia’s boom in gun violence, the number of gunfire incidents with multiple victims has been increasing dramatically in the city. Five years ago, police say, there were only four occasions in which four or more people were shot. So far this year, there have been 23.

In the violence Sunday, someone fired bullets into people gathered outside the Trompeta Bar & Grill on East Wyoming Avenue, near D Street, in Feltonville at 4:30 a.m. The shots wounded four men: a 45-year-old struck in the calf; a 37-year-old and a 27-year-old, both hit in their shoulders; and a 34-year grazed in the back. No arrests have been made.

Vanore and Police Capt. John Walker, who commands the department’s nonfatal shooting investigation group, said the victims just happened to be in the line of fire. “We think a lot of the people who were hit were probably not targeted,” Vanore said. Added Walker: “It’s luck of the draw. It’s by the grace of God.”

Walker said detectives were still searching for witnesses and videos of the gunfire and trying to determine why a crowd was still gathered outside the bar 2½ hours after it was to stop selling liquor. Saying the shooter had fired into the crowd from across the street, Walker speculated that the suspect had been tossed out of the bar and shot up the entrance in revenge.

As of Sunday, police say, almost 2,100 people had been fatally shot or wounded in Philadelphia in 2022, with such shootings clustered on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays.

The total wounded is a 3% hike over the tally for the same date last year and almost double the number wounded by this point five years ago. Homicides are also taking place at a higher rate than last year and should exceed the total annual number for 2021 within a few days.

Of the shootings in the last three weeks, two happened outside bars in the early morning. The Trompeta, for its part, has had a troubled regulatory history.

State Liquor Control Board records show that the LCB renewed its previous owner’s license in 2020 only after he agreed to sell the place. This agreement was struck with the last owner after the bar was fined four times between 2017 and 2019. Violations included selling alcohol after hours.

The bar was closed Monday afternoon and its phone was not working Monday evening.

In the earlier bar shooting, a gunman fired into a crowd gathered outside the Trilogy nightclub at Sixth and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties section on Oct. 30. The shots wounded four women and two men.

The victims were from New Jersey and were visiting Trilogy, which is permitted to sell liquor until 3 a.m. under a license given in the name of Palmer Social Club. It charges $20 admission and a security staff frisks patrons before they enter.

On its Facebook pages, Trilogy bills itself as “Philadelphia’s premier place to party” and appears open to all. “Tell a friend to tell a friend!!!” it advertises.

Walker said police had quickly zeroed in on a suspect in the Oct. 30 incident. Police are seeking a suspect in that shooting, Kalief Merritt, 27, of Trenton, who is wanted on a charge of attempted murder, authorities said.

Deputy Commissioner Vanore established the 75-member shootings investigation group a year ago to investigate nonfatal shootings, putting Walker in charge. Vanore said the unit was solving more cases. Previously, the cases had been farmed out to the various neighborhood-based detective divisions.

According to police, the shooting started after two men argued inside the club. As the place was ushering people out, the men kept quarreling outside and their dispute escalated into a physical fight involving others. The shooter was initially drawn into the fistfight and then apparently retrieved a handgun from a car and returned to fire it, police said.

The following Saturday, Nov. 5, nine people were hurt when shooters emerged from a car at 10:42 a.m. and fired into a crowd on a busy street in Kensington, police said. At least 40 shots were fired during the incident, police said.

And in June, 14 people were shot — three fatally — on South Street, the highest number of victims in a single incident in the city in years.