Category: Crime

June Rodriguez, 54, was riding his bike home after his shift at Bob & Barbara’s Lounge early Saturday morning — he refused to own a car in order to stay in shape — when he was killed in a hit-and-run.

Rodriguez was turning onto North 56th Street from Lancaster Avenue in Overbrook around 3:45 a.m. when the driver of a red SUV swerved into him and drove away, according to Philadelphia police.

In between angry sobs, his mother, Miriam Rodriguez, described a violent death that ran so counter to the way her son lived. She said his chest was crushed, his spine severed, and the driver just left him on the cold street.

“Growing up, he was always a good kid and everybody loved him, he had that kind of charisma,” she said. “It’s hard for somebody to come and hit him with a car and not do nothing about it.”

Police are investigating, looking for tips that could lead to an arrest.

Meanwhile, the sudden death of the longtime DJ, a decades-long presence at Bob & Barbara’s, has left a hole in Philly’s queer community and the house music scene.

Born in the Bronx, Rodriguez was always into music, his mother said. He took to the oldies and the salsa music his mother would play when cleaning the house. His love of music spread to dance, and he eventually got into breakdancing.

Rodriguez’s love of music was contagious, according to those who knew him, and garnered him many friends when he arrived in Philly around the mid-aughts.

Though straight, Rodriguez was a longtime member of the drag show DJ team at Bob & Barbara’s and well-known among Philly’s LGBTQ+ community, playing at Pride events.

When Rodriguez’s only son, Skye, came out to his father as transgender, the DJ was “fully on board” and seamlessly began introducing him as his son, Skye Rodriguez said. Rodriguez was even trying to get his son to leave Reading and move to Philly, where he would have access to a larger LGBTQ+ community.

“He wanted me to be as happy as possible,” Skye Rodriguez said. “He was like, ‘You know, I’ll do anything I can to get you here.’”

In the days after his death, longtime friends and acquaintances have flooded social media with remembrances.

Bob & Barbara’s mourned Rodriguez in a Facebook post. He’d had a decades-long relationship with the bar, working as door greeter, security, and occasional barback over the years. His latest venture there was learning how to tend bar, according to the lounge.

“His passion for music radiated through every part of his life and he created an expansive and diverse community through his art,” the post read.

Cameron Guthrie, a longtime friend who met Rodriguez in the now-closed Liaison Room, said Rodriguez was so beloved because of how supportive he could be, even to borderline strangers.

“He was everybody’s biggest fan,” said Guthrie, who also DJs, and remembers how Rodriguez was constantly telling him he should be playing in New York City, especially when his music wasn’t finding an audience in Philly.

“When others would read you to filth, he’d root for you.”

The community Rodriguez built has been visible in the days following his death. Outside of the online tributes, his son said a local music festival, called Departed, dedicated proceeds from its after-hours party Saturday to his funeral expenses. Rodriguez had been slated to play the after-hours event.

“I didn’t realize how many friends and people loved him until I went to the set that he was supposed to play the other night, and saw how many people showed up for him,” his son said.

Guthrie and other DJ friends organized a similarly popular dance party Sunday at Penn Treaty Park. A GoFundMe that said Rodriguez created “a sanctuary on the dance floor” has raised more than $17,000 for funeral expenses.

Safe-streets advocates, meanwhile, are calling attention to the dangerous conditions on the strip of road where Rodriguez was killed.

A long stretch of Lancaster Avenue has long been identified, by the city’s own calculations, as one of the most dangerous in Philadelphia, part of the 12% of city streets that account for 80% of traffic deaths and serious injuries. It has been listed on what is called the high-injury network for years.

Just in September, a 77-year-old pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run at 54th Street and Lancaster Avenue, not far from where Rodriguez was killed.

The strip does have a bike lane, but advocates say it should be protected to prevent reckless drivers from using it as a shoulder or turning lane.

“The frequent appearance of one road on the high-injury network is proof that the current configuration is unsafe for everyone, and PennDot, who controls the street, is not doing enough to fix it,” Philly Bike Action said in a statement, adding Rodriguez’s death was the seventh cyclist fatality in the city this year.

Philadelphia police have arrested a 16-year-old girl and charged her with voluntary manslaughter, after they said she stabbed a man Sunday morning in Roxborough.

Officers who were called to the 500 block of Wartman Street found the 57-year-old man. He had been stabbed multiple timesin between his ribs, police said.

The man, whose name has not been released, was transported to Jefferson-Einstein Hospital, where he died shortly after 10 a.m., police said.

Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said the girl and her mother lived with the man, a family friend, in the Wartman Street home. He said that there was an altercation between the teen and the man, and that the girl then stabbed him multiple times. The teen, he said, also suffered injuries to her face.

Officers took the girl into custody Sunday. In addition to voluntary manslaughter, she has been charged with possessing an instrument of crime. She is being charged as a juvenile.

Vanore said investigators are looking into whether the teen and man may have used drugs together.

Philadelphia police are looking to question a 39-year-old man in connection with the shooting of a mother and her 5-month-old baby inside their West Philadelphia home over the weekend, according to a law enforcement source.

Investigators have identified Faheem Weaver as a suspect in the shooting of his daughter and her mother early Sunday morning, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The woman and baby — identified by family members as Alayiah Hill and Yuri Weaver — were asleep inside their home on the 1500 block of North Robinson Street when, around 4 a.m., someone approached the door and sprayed black paint over their Ring camera, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

The gunman then entered the rowhouse and shot Hill multiple times in the stomach, and the baby once in the leg, Vanore said. Both were expected to survive, he said, but the mother remained hospitalized in critical condition Monday morning.

A warrant has not been issued for anyone’s arrest in the shooting, Vanore said, and the investigation continues.

Hill’s family could not be reached Monday.

Court records show that Weaver, of East Norriton in Montgomery County, has a history of domestic violence, and is currently out on bail after he was charged in October with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, making terroristic threats, and related crimes.

In that incident, Weaver is accused of attacking Hill inside of her Robinson Street home in late August. Hill told police that around 7 a.m., her ex-boyfriend kicked her down the stairs, and when she grabbed a two-by-four piece of wood to defend herself, he overpowered her, grabbed the wooden panel, and beat her legs with it, causing multiple lacerations, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

A warrant was issued for Weaver’s arrest on Oct. 2, and he was taken into custody and charged Oct. 14. (It was not immediately clear why the warrant for the August incident was not issued until October.)

Bail magistrate Patrick Stack set bail at $75,000, and Weaver immediately posted the necessary $7,500 cash to be released, court records show.

The shooting comes as violence across Philadelphia has declined considerably in the last two years, with the city on track to record the fewest homicides since the 1960s. Still, shootings continue to occur in pockets of the city that have long experienced violence — and seen higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and other health issues.

Domestic-related attacks continue to be of concern to law enforcement officials.

Staff writer Jillian Kramer contributed to this reporting.

Philadelphia Police say the Special Victims Unit is investigating after a 2-year-old boy died Sunday morning in Point Breeze.

Officers in the 17th District responded to what police described as “a hospital-related radio call involving a two-year-old child reported not breathing” around 5 a.m. at a home on the 2100 block of Titan Street, police said.

A medic conducted CPR, police said, and the child was taken to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was pronounced dead at 5:31 a.m.

Police said Sunday afternoon that the cause of death had not been determined. “The investigation is ongoing with the Special Victims Unit,” police said.

A woman and an infant were shot in West Philadelphia’s Carroll Park neighborhood early Sunday, according to police.

The shooting happened in the 1500 block of North Robinson Street at 4:05 a.m. Sunday, police said.

The woman was shot “multiple times throughout her body” and was taken to Penn-Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was in critical condition, police said.

A baby girl was shot once in her left leg, was taken to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and was in stable condition, police said.

Police said the shooter was unknown and the Shooting Investigation Group is investigating.

One person was killed and at least seven others, including a firefighter, were injured as a fire tore through an Upper Darby apartment Saturday, officials said.

Firefighters were called about 10:30 a.m. to a three-story building on the 3200 block of Township Line Road, in the Drexel Hill neighborhood, where the blaze had broken out in a second-floor apartment. The flames were contained to the apartment, but the heat, smoke, and water damaged nearby units, Upper Darby Township Fire Chief Nicholas Martin said in a news release.

Martin said one person died from their injuries after being hospitalized, and another was critically injured. Their identities have not been made public.

A firefighter was also hospitalized, but later released, for burn injuries sustained while rescuing two people from the apartment. At least five others suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, and about 75 people were displaced from their homes, the news release said.

“Our thoughts are with the victims of this fire and their families during this tremendously difficult time,” Martin said in the statement.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.