PHILADELPHIA, PA — Authorities have identified five people who were killed Monday night during “an unimaginably disgusting and horrifying” mass shooting in the Kingsessing neighborhood that has left the community reeling, authorities said.
Lashyd Merritt, 20; Dymir Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; Daujan Brown, 15, and Joseph Wamah Jr., 31, all of Philadelphia, were killed in the shooting, police said.
Two children, ages 2 and 15, were injured, one shot in the leg, and the other getting glass in his eyes from a window shattered by gunfire, police said. They were listed as stable, police said.
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A 40-year-old man who was “armed and armored” is being held pending murder and weapons charges, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and DA Larry Krasner said. His name has not been released but Krasner said his preliminary arraignment was anticipated to take place on Wednesday. Read more: Gunman In Ballistic Vest Kills 5 In Philadelphia Mass Shooting: Report
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The shooting was reported at 8:28 p.m. in the area of the 1600 block of South 56th Street. Outlaw and Krasner said while the officers tended to victims, they heard more gunfire near 6th Street and Kingsessing Avenue, Outlaw said. Some of the officers ran toward the gunfire, and as they chased the man, he continued to fire. Police finally arrested the man in an alley off South Frazier Street.
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The man was armed with an AR-15 rifle and a 9mm handgun and wearing a ballistic vest and carrying a police scanner, authorities said. They believe he was acting alone, based on witness interviews and video captured of the shooting, said Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the city’s homicide unit.
A second person who was initially detained after firing a weapon was released, Ransom and Krasner said, as it appears he was firing in self-defense. The investigation into that continues, but Krasner said there was no legitimate reason to hold the second person.
Six people were taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where four were pronounced dead, he said.
The fifth person who died was found after midnight in a home on 1600 South 56th street. He was home alone and discovered by family members hours after the shooting, Ransom said, and is believed to be the first victim in the shooting.
Outlaw and Krasner praised the officers who responded for their bravery.
“I commend these officers for their unwavering bravery,” Outlaw said. “Their swift actions undoubtedly save additional lives.”
Krasner said authorities were working to provide support to the victims’ families and everyone affected by the shooting, including the officers who responded.
“What the police officers went through out there … having to scoop injured or dying people into a vehicle at a time where there are shots going off everywhere and they have no way to protect their own backs, having to do that is rough,” he said. “Having to do it all night is rough. Getting two hours of sleep and being back out there this morning is rough.”
“There’s a lot of people who had a very, very hard time last night,” Krasner said, adding that the department’s victim witness staff has been deployed to intensively assist the victims’ families as well as the community, which he said has been “deeply, deeply affected.”
“What I saw this morning on a beautiful July 4th when the temperature wasn’t too hot, was completely empty streets,” Krasner said. “I saw every porch empty. I saw every door closed. I saw every curtain where there was a curtain, pulled.”
“I saw no kids playing,” he said. “I saw a bicycle that had been left there from the time of the shooting, sitting on a corner untouched for 12 or more hours, nobody coming out to move it to take it or touch it. (It was) as if everybody understood what happened here was so horrible that for right now this is a desert.”
Krasner said the man would be facing multiple counts of murder and aggravated assault during the preliminary arraignment in what he called “a truly atrocious, horrific act.”
Krasner also took time blast Pennsylvania’s firearms laws.
“It is disgusting the lack of proper gun legislation that we have in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he said. “You can go to New Jersey and find a whole list of reasonable gun regulation that we don’t have, you can go to Delaware and find almost as long a list.”
“Some of that legislation might have made a difference here,” he said.
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