7 MORE DEAD

AFTER A home-cooked breakfast of fish and grits with his girlfriend yesterday, Reginald Ford, 17, started to walk to a friend's house.

He was rounding the corner from 15th Street onto York in North Philadelphia when he became the city's 158th homicide victim this year.

Police said Ford, a student at FitzSimons High School, was shot five times. He died at Temple University Hospital about 11:30 a.m.

Ford's brother Michael Lawry was gunned down last September, just steps from where Ford was killed yesterday, Ford's girlfriend said.

Ford was one of six people slain in the city over the weekend. Another man, who had been shot May 10, died Saturday, helping to push the homicide total this year to 159.

The first weekend slaying was found shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday when the body of Danielle Sommerville, 27, was found in a house on 5th Street near Montrose, Queen Village. She had been shot multiple times in the head and body. She died at the scene.

Outside, at the rear of the property, police found Kareem Preston, 29, of Island Avenue near Buist, with multiple gunshot wounds. He died at the scene at 1:22 a.m.

Shortly before midnight Saturday, police found a 31-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds to his body and head inside a house on Tasker Street near Carlisle, South Philadelphia. He died at the scene.

About 6:20 a.m. yesterday, police discovered Earl Gamble, shot to death in a vacant lot on Oakdale Street near 27th.

At 2:14 p.m., a block from Ford's shooting hours before, a 54-year-old man was shot in the head. He died at Temple Hospital at 5:39 p.m.

The city's 159th homicide victim, he remained unidentified by police late yesterday.

Police said a woman was shot in the right leg in the same incident. She was in stable condition at Temple.

About 1:40 p.m., a 23-year-old man was shot seven times on Boyer Street near Locust Avenue, Germantown, and taken to Einstein Medical Center in critical condition.

On Saturday, Luis Lopez, 23, who had been shot May 10 on Allegheny Avenue near Front Street, died at Temple Hospital.

Last night, Reginald Ford's friends gathered in front of a makeshift memorial at the scene of the murder, and expressed fury over the death of a young man they described as lovable and kindhearted.

Ford's girlfriend, Shaunise Walker, 20, had had breakfast with him minutes before he was shot. She said she ran to the corner and saw him as he took his last breaths.

"He was just laying there in his nephew's arms. His nephew was holding him and telling him to keep squeezing his hands," Walker said.

Ford lay on the sidewalk bleeding until police officers rushed him to Temple Hospital, where he died.

"The people who do this don't realize that the people they are shooting are someone's friend and, more importantly, someone's family member," Walker said. "He was just getting over his brother being killed and then it happens to him."