On a day when Philadelphians would normally be celebrating, a corner of the city was quiet.
The streets of Kingsessing were largely empty Tuesday — residents inside their homes, the doors double-locked. Most of the people outside were politicians and police officers keeping watch. A child’s mint-green bike lay abandoned in the street.
“No one is willing, including kids, to come by and pick it up,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said.
They’re too scared, he said.
Because 12 hours earlier, a person with a gun started shooting along 56th Street near Chester and Springfield Avenues in Southwest Philadelphia. Police say the suspect, identified by officials as Kimbrady Carriker, 40, opened fire on occupied cars and passersby while dressed in body armor and armed with an automatic rifle.
Seven people were shot across several blocks. Police officers rushed them to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, but five people died: Da’Juan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 20; Ralph Moralis, 59; Dymir Stanton, 29; and Joseph Wamah Jr., 31.
Two boys, ages 2 and 13, were shot in the legs. They were stable at a hospital Tuesday.
Monday’s shooting is the deadliest in Philadelphia in more than two decades.
“People scared, people on edge,” said Amer Barber, 40, a Kingsessing resident.
Police believe the first person to be fatally shot was Wamah, who lived on the 1600 block of South 56th Street.
Then, police say, Carriker wandered out into the street and began “shooting aimlessly,” at occupied vehicles and people on the street, said Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Homicide Unit.
A 31-year-old woman was driving down the street, heading home, when bullets flew through the car, Ransom said. Her 2-year-old son was struck in the legs, and his twin was struck in the eyes by shattered glass. Both were in stable condition.
About 10 minutes later, after following the sounds of gunfire, officers followed the suspect into an alleyway, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said,and took the suspect into custody without incident.
Theo James, 25, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood, was on the corner of 55th Street and Paschall Avenue when he heard someone was “shooting up people in cars.”
“I heard a young man screaming, ‘Help, help, help! Please help!’ There’s people walking by him,” said James.
He ran toward the screams blocks away, even as the shots continued to ring out, he said. He helped move three victims into police cars, but had to stop out of fear — he could hear shots still being fired.
A second person believed to have returned gunfire also was taken into custody, but was not facing charges because it appeared the person fired in self-defense, Krasner said.
On Tuesday, families began to process the senseless violence that stole their loved ones.
Such as the family of Ralph Moralis, who was supposed to walk his eldest daughter down the aisle this weekend at her wedding, said Tamika Veney, Moralis’ former partner of 25 years.
“He did well by his family,” she said of Moralis. “He’s really going to be missed.”
Even after they split up, Veney said, the two remained cordial for their now-20-year-old daughter, who was always his baby.
Talking to residents alongside elected officials, including Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson and state Rep. Joanna McClinton, Krasner noted that the bike was serving as an unofficial memorial for victims Tuesday morning.
“Doors here are locked,” Krasner said. “They’re double-locked, curtains are closed, kids are being told not to go outside because of the horror that went down here yesterday. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
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Staff writers Robert Moran, Rodrigo Torrejón, and Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.
