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  • The first week of July is typically Philly’s most violent. This year, the holiday weekend was markedly calmer.

    The first week of July is typically Philly’s most violent. This year, the holiday weekend was markedly calmer.

    The first week of July has typically been one of Philadelphia’s most violent, with recent Independence Day weekends marked by mass shootings, police officers shot, and bursts of violence that left a dozen dead.

    But this year, amid a dramatic decline in violence and a flood of visitors to the city, the holiday weekend was noticeably calmer than in years past, offering another encouraging sign that the dramatic decline in shootings held through one of its toughest tests.

    Twenty-three people were shot from July 1 through July 7 — a slightly higher total than most weeks in 2026, but nearly half the average number of shooting victims during the same period over the last decade, according to city data. In 2021, at the height of the city’s gun violence crisis, more than 70 people were shot in that week alone.

    If the current pace continues, Philadelphia is on track to record fewer than 200 homicides for the first time since the 1960s, a remarkable turnaround from just five years ago, when nearly three times as many people were killed.

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    Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said in an interview that the July Fourth weekend is historically one of the most challenging for urban police departments.

    In each of the last four years, Philadelphia’s celebrations were overshadowed by violence: Last year, 13 people were shot in South Philadelphia; nine people were struck by bullets at a teen party in Southwest Philadelphia in 2024; five people were killed at random by an armored gunman in Kingsessing the year before; and in 2022, two officers were grazed by bullets on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, sparking a stampede of fireworks spectators.

    Bethel said he and other city, state, and federal law enforcement officials spent about two years planning for this holiday weekend, preparing for potential crises that never came.

    Anticipating hundreds of thousands of visitors for FIFA Club World Cup events and the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations, the department canceled many officers’ vacation requests over the last month and, on the Fourth, deployed more than 2,000 members of local and state law enforcement across the city, he said.

    Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, speaks at a press conference on the details for the Roots Picnic in May 2026.

    Reinforcements from the Pennsylvania State Police and neighboring municipalities helped the city maintain staffing levels in neighborhoods that have historically seen more violence, Bethel said. Officers worked in the record-breaking heat, he said, with some starting their shifts at 7 a.m. and clocking out only after the concert on the Parkway ended at 3 a.m.

    The FBI took the lead on monitoring the skies, Bethel said, intercepting several drones that were flying illegally. (None of the drones, he said, was flying with “nefarious” intent.)

    He called the weekend a validation of the city’s planning and broader work that has contributed to the decline in gun violence.

    “I can’t tell you how many people grabbed me and said they felt welcomed and felt safe,” he said of the events over the last month. “Let’s own the win. Let’s not hide from it.”

    Bethel also said there had been no acts of violence around the approximately two dozen bars that were approved to stay open until 4 a.m. from June 11 to July 19 to accommodate crowds attending the FIFA, July Fourth, and MLB All-Star celebrations.

    “We’re seeing zero issues,” he said.

    Soccer fans gather to watch Mexico play South Africa on a giant screen during the opening day of the FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Philadelphia.

    The reduction in violence over the holiday weekend fits a broader pattern. Shootings and homicides in the city began to decline in 2023, mirroring a national trend, and have continued to fall. So far this year, 90 people have been killed in homicides — less than a third of the number recorded at the same time three years ago, according to police data.

    Just as there was no clear explanation for the spike in crime that began in 2019, criminologists and law enforcement officials say, it is similarly difficult to pinpoint the reasons for its decline. But there are theories: an overall return to normal life after the pandemic, expanded community-based violence prevention programs, more arrests in shootings and homicides, and targeted prosecutions of some of the city’s most violent gangs.

    One measurable change has been the police department’s improved clearance rates, which researchers have long viewed as a potential deterrent to future violence.

    The homicide clearance rate — the share of killings solved, including arrests made this year in both new and older cases — has climbed to nearly 99%, up from about 47% in 2022. The clearance rate for nonfatal shootings has risen to about 41%, roughly double what it was in 2021.

    Bethel said those arrests take would-be shooters and victims off the streets and interrupt cycles of violence.

    “We’re impacting retaliation, we’re impacting somebody being shot again, we’re impacting someone who may shoot and kill somebody,” he said.

    Jeff Asher, a New Orleans-based national crime analyst, said because the decline is likely driven by many programs and societal changes, it is hard to know what will sustain the progress.

    “I keep expecting [the crime rate] to stop falling, and it’s just not,” he said in an interview. “So, maybe this is the new normal. We just can’t say with a ton of confidence.”

    Still, the quieter weekend was not wholly peaceful.

    Three men were killed between Friday and Monday morning, leaving families and neighbors to mourn loved ones even as the city showed signs of sustained progress.

    On Monday morning, Shawn Caddell, 32, was killed during a robbery inside a Logan beer deli, police said. And on Sunday, two men were slain in areas that have long been hot spots for shootings: Emanuel Aguirre, 27, was fatally shot in the Hunting Park section of North Philadelphia, and Donald McPhaul, 51, was gunned down on Salford Street in West Philadelphia.

    A 16-year-old in South Philadelphia was among more than a dozen people who were shot and survived.

    Philadelphia police examine a car with a bullet hole after a man was fatally shot along the 500 block of East Wyoming Avenue on July 5, 2026.

    Bethel said the pockets of the city that have long experienced higher rates of violence — and that continue to see shootings, albeit fewer, today — remain a priority.

    “We are never going to give up in those communities,” he said. “We are going to keep working in those areas.”

    Recent polls have found that a majority of Philadelphians have noticed the decline and feel safer. But for residents on blocks where shootings remain a recurring threat, a citywide trend line can feel distant from daily life.

    Chantay Love, president of the victim-advocacy organization EMIR Healing Center, said the communities seeing recurring violence are still grappling with “the trauma and collateral damage that is left behind” from the last six years.

    Along the stretch of Market Street near where McPhaul was killed, more than 100 bullets were fired into a party on July 4, 2021, leaving two men dead. Earlier this year, 20-year-old Imani Ringgold was walking down the block with a slice of pizza when she was caught in the crossfire of an escalating gang feud and killed.

    Linda Days, 72, who lives in the area, said the shooting that killed McPhaul was another reminder of the violence she has come to expect since moving there seven years ago from Olney.

    Standing in her doorway on Tuesday, Days said it feels as if gunfire has become part of the soundtrack outside her home. But during the Fourth of July weekend, she said, she is especially careful to stay inside.

    “I don’t even come out to watch the fireworks,” she said.

  • Property values in Kensington went up more than any other Philly neighborhood this year

    Property values in Kensington went up more than any other Philly neighborhood this year

    The biggest jump in Philadelphia’s property assessments this year occurred in Kensington, a measure that means many homeowners in the long-struggling neighborhood are likely to see higher taxes amid a concerted effort by the city to clean up the area.

    That is according to an Inquirer analysis of recently released property assessments of single-family homes, which found that, citywide, there was a 3% median change in valuations from the 2025 tax year, the last time there was a mass reassessment.

    That increase is far more modest than the widespread jump in valuations that homeowners saw two years ago, which captured multiple years of real estate growth and the volatile post-pandemic market.

    What remains the same: who will be most affected.

    The Inquirer’s analysis of this year’s property assessment data shows that low-income neighborhoods near gentrifying areas saw the sharpest jumps in valuations compared with the rest of the city.

    The four areas that saw the largest percentage increases in median assessments — Kensington, Mantua, Grays Ferry, and Kingsessing — all border more gentrified neighborhoods like Fishtown, University City, and Point Breeze. The results of the analysis are a further sign that market pressures in higher-income areas are pushing into pockets of the city that have long been primarily home to Black and brown working-class residents.

    Of the eight neighborhoods that saw the largest increases between the 2025 and 2027 tax years, five have median annual household incomes around $40,000 or less, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data. The federal poverty level is $33,000 for a family of four.

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    In a statement, officials with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration noted that many homeowners in those five neighborhoods are benefiting from a popular city tax break. The city said that the median 2027 value in those five neighborhoods is $123,600, so for many homeowners in those areas, the median taxable assessed value is just $23,600.

    That is because of the homestead exemption, a tax break for homeowners who live in their house as their primary residence that exempts the first $100,000 in home value from property taxes. Homeowners must sign up to be included in the free program.

    At least 60% of homeowners in those neighborhoods have signed up for property tax relief programs, according to the city.

    James Aros Jr., the chief assessor of the Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment, and Revenue Commissioner Kathleen McColgan said enrollment rates in property tax relief, including the homestead exemption and multiple tax freeze programs, are “encouraging.”

    They said the city will “build on this progress through extensive targeted outreach, community partnerships, and efforts to make enrollment as simple and accessible as possible.”

    The current property tax rate is 1.3998% of assessed value, which has not changed for nearly a decade. The revenue is split between the city and the Philadelphia School District.

    Rising home values in Kensington

    Citywide, the steepest increase in valuations was in Kensington, where the median property value jumped 15.3%, from $115,700 in the 2025 tax year to $133,400 now. That median increase would translate to a roughly $250 annual property tax hike.

    That comes after Parker’s administration in 2024 launched a multipronged effort to address the long-entrenched open-air drug market in Kensington, which is the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis and a site of sprawling homelessness.

    While the administration has increased law enforcement’s staffing in the neighborhood and scaled up programs for people who are in addiction, Kensington has also for years seen creeping gentrification from Fishtown to its southeast.

    In this 2021 file photo, a glass building at J and Tioga sits near a beer store in Kensington.

    Some neighborhood leaders have watched with anxiety as luxury housing developers and out-of-town investors gobbled up properties in the neighborhood, fearing that poorer residents and middle-class homebuyers may be priced out.

    City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat who represents the 7th Council District, which includes parts of Kensington, said she knew speculators from outside the area would want to make it “the next gentrified neighborhood” once the city changed its strategy to more aggressively clean up trash and improve public safety.

    How speculators fueled a nightmare for Kensington residents — and could soon cash in

    But Lozada said there are not enough programs specific to Kensington aimed at preventing displacement as a result of rising property values, especially as the city is investing millions of dollars a year to improve the neighborhood. She said her office is exploring additional tax relief measures.

    “I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make sure that residents who have lived in that community can stay there, can raise their families there,” Lozada said. “We have witnessed what has happened on the southern end of the district, where there has been rapid gentrification.”

    In this March file photo, City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada stands in Council chambers during Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s budget address.

    Lozada also said rising property values in Kensington are part of why she has been “so careful with projects presented to me” and has prioritized what she sees as equitable development in the neighborhood — at times to the chagrin of developers who think she has been too restrictive.

    “I’m all about people making a return,” she said, “but you can’t continue to do it on the backs of poor people.”

    The 3100 block of Arbor Street in Philadelphia on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.

    Continuing change in pockets of West Philly

    There were also significant property value increases in parts of West Philadelphia.

    The median increase in Mantua, the neighborhood north of University City, was the second highest in the city, at 15%, according to The Inquirer’s analysis. The median increase was 12% in Kingsessing, the neighborhood south of University City that in 2025 saw the largest jump of any neighborhood in Philadelphia.

    Newly developed buildings along Fairmount Avenue in the neighborhood of Mantua in Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025.

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, a Democrat who represents West Philadelphia and has made preventing displacement a key initiative, said that there has long been racial bias in the city’s property assessments and that the city must “get serious” about protecting low-income homeowners by revamping its system.

    “There has to be a higher level of urgency in making sure that the city doesn’t have a hand in pushing out all of these homeowners that make Philadelphia what it is,” Gauthier said. “It’s unconscionable for us to destabilize our neighborhoods and the longtime homeowners who live there because we didn’t take enough care to make sure that our process was fair and equitable.”

    For too long, she said, city officials have said they intended to examine the property assessment practices and identify improvements. In 2024, Parker convened a task force to study the process.

    Aros told Council in April that the task force’s report was “being finalized.” He said OPA would look to implement recommendations from the report, including conducting more regular reassessments and improving property-level data such as property condition.

    The city is also planning to hire an outside consultant to examine its mass appraisal practices, according to city records. The analyst will be responsible for drafting a report by the end of this year.

    Deputy creative director John Duchneskie contributed to this article.

  • House of the week: A six-bedroom Victorian twin in University City for $689,000

    House of the week: A six-bedroom Victorian twin in University City for $689,000

    The six-bedroom, three-bathroom twin in University City is just two blocks from where Emma Steiner was born. Still, it has given her and her husband, Joe Leonard, a totally new housing experience.

    Steiner, a psychotherapist, and Leonard, an attorney, had been renting in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood when they decided in 2013 to make the Victorian twin their first house.

    The living room. The home has hardwood floors.

    The open floor plan was unusual for the neighborhood, Steiner said, and Leonard “was blown away by the big old trees.” And she said both were impressed by the large windows at the front of the house.

    The couple and their two children, aged 10 and 7, will be moving three blocks away to a larger house with a bigger yard.

    “We’re staying in the neighborhood we love,” Steiner said.

    Kitchen
    Breakfast nook

    Their home had undergone a complete renovation in 2008, opening up the first floor with high ceilings.

    Steiner and Leonard replaced the flat roof and mansard roof last year and this year, adding a new skylight. And they replaced the porch steps and basement electrical panel.

    Office

    Built in 1913, or perhaps a little earlier, the house has hardwood floors, central air, and is 2,760 square feet.

    There are three bedrooms on the second floor, including the primary suite and its en suite bathroom. One of the bedrooms is used as a family room.

    Back yard

    There are three bedrooms on the third floor. The second and third floors each have a hall bathroom.

    The house is a short walk to Clark Park, the renovated Kingsessing Recreation Center, Baltimore Avenue stores, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Drexel University.

    It is listed by Asher Brooks Chancey of OCF Realty for $689,000.

  • Gas prices are set to increase amid Iran war. Here’s what we know.

    Gas prices are set to increase amid Iran war. Here’s what we know.

    Americans could start paying more at the gas pump, following the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran.

    West Texas Intermediate crude, an oil produced in the United States, surged 6.2% on Monday to $71.19 per barrel. As of Tuesday, it has spiked another 8%, hovering at around $77. It marks the oil’s highest point in over a year. But that’s just the beginning.

    Experts say those surges reflect similar spikes in natural gas and at the gas station.

    Here’s what we know.

    Why are gas prices going up?

    Known as the “crude oil effect,” when oil prices go up, so does the price of the fuel it makes. Crude oil must be processed at refineries to be turned into gasoline.

    The conflict in the Middle East, which President Donald Trump said he anticipates could take longer than a few weeks, means the global supply of oil is disrupted, and, in turn, the price of a barrel of oil goes up. This causes the price of fuel to also rise.

    “Whatever the time is, it’s OK,” Trump said. “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”

    Oil prices were already on the rise, up 17% this year. Experts say the increase is a direct effect of Trump’s rhetoric against Iran, along with his administration’s recent sanctions against the country.

    And, as noted by John Quigley, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, it’s not just oil and gasoline; natural gas is also seeing a price increase.

    And U.S. consumers will be hit hard, he says.

    “It’s disrupting global oil and gas markets,” he said. “The war is quickly widening into a regional conflict, with the production capacity of multiple oil- and gas-producing nations being attacked by Iran in retaliatory strikes. This has already disrupted global oil and natural gas shipments.”

    How much have gas prices increased since the strike on Iran?

    As oil prices surged Monday, the impacts already started to trickle down to gas stations. This week, the national average of gas per gallon surpassed $3 for the first time since November.

    Some states, including Illinois, Michigan, and Texas have already reported increases of about 5 cents per gallon.

    As of Tuesday morning, the national average hit $3.11, marking the largest single-day increase since 2022, according to GasBuddy, a gas price tracking service.

    Quigley says those increases could be just the beginning.

    “Prices for natural gas in European and Asian markets have already spiked 50%. U.S. natural gas exporters will rush to take advantage of that, diverting domestic supplies to exports and pushing up domestic natural gas prices,” he said. “That will raise costs for home heating, and worsen already surging electricity costs, because over 40% of electricity generation in PJM, the nation’s largest grid, is fueled by natural gas.”

    Do gas prices always rise during war?

    Gas prices historically surge when conflicts happen because of a mix of supply disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty, and oil infrastructure attacks.

    As detailed by NPR, major price surges occurred during the Gulf War, the 2003 Iraq invasion, and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war.

    How high could gas prices get?

    GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan told multiple news outlets he believes some gas stations could charge as much as 30 cents more per gallon by the end of the week.

    He estimated prices would be around $3.10 or $3.20 per gallon by the end of the week and anticipated they would hit $3.30 to $3.35 “in time.”

    What are the average gas prices in the Philadelphia region? How does that compare to the national average?

    As of Tuesday morning:

    • The national average gas price: $3.11
    • The Pennsylvania average gas price: $3.21
    • The Philadelphia average gas price: $3.12

    Which areas in the Philly region have the lowest gas prices?

    The average price of gas in Philly is $3.12 per gallon as of Tuesday morning. Still, there are some spots with lower prices, according to GasBuddy.

    Among the lowest appears to be an Eastcoast station in Fairmount (801 N. Broad St.) with gas going for $2.79 as of Monday evening. A Marathon in Southwest Philly (2450 Island Ave.) listed gas at $2.74 within the last 24 hours.

    Among the highest appears to be a Gulf station in Kingsessing (5200 Woodland Ave.), priced at $3.29 as of Monday evening.

    Who sets gas prices?

    No one person sets gas prices. In reality, the price you see at pumps is the result of a combination of oil prices, supply and demand, oil refining costs, distribution, and competition.

  • Her brother was killed in the Kingsessing mass shooting. Now her only son is dead from gun violence, too.

    Her brother was killed in the Kingsessing mass shooting. Now her only son is dead from gun violence, too.

    In December, Katrina Williams watched as the man who killed her brother was sentenced to decades in prison and felt, she said, as if a two-year nightmare was coming to an end.

    But weeks later, another shooting took the life of her only son.

    Williams’ brother, Lashyd Merritt, 21, was one of five people killed in a mass shooting in Kingsessing in July 2023, when Kimbrady Carriker walked through the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood with an AR-15 rifle and fired at random passersby.

    Then, in January, her 19-year-old son, Russell, was killed by a man who, like the Kingsessing shooter, committed a spree of crimes, police say.

    “I’ll never understand it,” said Williams, 43. “There’s no reason for it.”

    A high school photograph of Russell Williams being held by his father and mother, Katrina and Russell Williams Sr. at their home in Southwest Philadelphia on Feb. 6.

    For Williams, the trauma of Merritt’s violent death never fully dissipated, she said, and the fatal shooting of her son only compounds her pain.

    It’s a cycle of violence that is not unfamiliar in the city.

    For others with relatives killed in the Kingsessing attack, the traumatic impact of gun violence did not end on that July day. Nyshyia Thomas lost her 15-year-old son, DaJuan Brown, to the gunfire and, while she was still mourning, her 21-year-old son, Daquan Brown, was arrested last year in connection with another mass shooting in Grays Ferry.

    Asked about the evening of Jan. 28, when she and her husband, Russell Williams Sr., learned of their son’s death, Williams said two things came to mind:

    “Déjà vu,” she said, and “hell.”

    A seemingly random crime

    Around 10 p.m. near 64th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, police said, 19-year-old Zaamir Harris stepped off a SEPTA bus and stole a bike from the vehicle.

    He rode up to Russell Williams, who was walking home from night school, where the teen was studying to become a commercial truck driver. Harris then pulled a gun and fired at Williams multiple times, striking him in the throat, police said.

    Williams collapsed near 66th Street and Dicks Avenue, just three blocks from home. After the shooting, Harris ditched the bike and stole an e-scooter before fleeing, according to police.

    Police tracked Harris to a Wawa at 84th Street and Bartram Avenue, where he was arrested. He was charged with murder and gun crimes. Investigators recovered three fired cartridge casings from the scene, as well as a 9mm handgun, according to police.

    A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department declined to say whether investigators have determined a motive for the shooting, citing the ongoing investigation.

    Katrina Williams said her son did not know Harris, and a police detective told her the shooting was random.

    After he was shot, Russell Williams was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died from his injuries. It was the same hospital where Williams’ brother, Merritt, was taken after being shot in Kingsessing, she said.

    Katrina Williams, whose son, Russell, 19, was shot and killed not far from family home in Southwest Philadelphia.

    Russell Williams had recently graduated from Philadelphia Electrical and Technology Charter School and dreamed of an entrepreneurial career in stock trading.

    Like her son, Williams said, Merritt was a hard worker who wanted to better his life. He worked for the IRS, had a girlfriend, and wanted to travel the world, she said.

    “We lost two great people,” Williams said. “Two of them.”

    That police made an arrest in the slaying of their son has brought little solace, Williams and her husband said as they sat in their Southwest Philadelphia living room on a recent February day. Family photos filled the space, and a portrait of Russell, smiling and wearing a tuxedo, hung on the wall.

    As the case against her son’s accused killer proceeds, Williams said, she will be in court every step of the way, just as she was when Carriker pleaded guilty in the death of her brother.

    In December, as Carriker faced sentencing, Williams said, she could not bring herself to address the judge and ask for a long prison sentence, as relatives of other victims did. She was so overcome with anger, she said, that she feared she might physically attack her brother’s killer.

    But she was in the room when Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced him to 37½ to 75 years in prison. In Williams’ view, Carriker should have received a life sentence for each person he killed, she said, even if no punishment could make up for the loss of Merritt.

    Now, Williams is preparing to head back to court as she once again seeks justice.

    Since her son’s death, Williams said, she has taken comfort in the kindness of friends and family. She was touched, she said, to see a “block full of people” gather to honor his life and release balloons in his memory. But the ache of her loss remains.

    “It’s like pain on top of pain — it’s just always gonna be hard,“ Williams said. ”I just gotta deal with it the best way I can.”

  • Man dies in North Philadelphia house fire

    Man dies in North Philadelphia house fire

    A man died Thursday morning in a fire inside a North Philadelphia home.

    The fire started around 5:15 a.m. on the 2500 block of North 12th Street, where crews found heavy smoke and fire coming from the two-story rowhouse, according to the Philadelphia Fire Department. Firefighters witnessed fire coming from the second floor, where they found a person dead inside the home.

    Philadelphia fire department personnel at scene of fatal fire 2500 block N. 12th Street, early Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.

    Firefighters placed the fire under control by 5:45 a.m. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

    The Thursday morning blaze followed a fatal house fire in Kingsessing on Wednesday morning, which the fire marshal’s office determined was intentionally set, and another fatal fire in early January that claimed the life of a woman in the Ogontz section.

  • Her youngest son was killed in a mass shooting. Now, her eldest is charged with committing one.

    Her youngest son was killed in a mass shooting. Now, her eldest is charged with committing one.

    Two mass shootings, just years apart, forever altered Nyshyia Thomas’ life.

    In July 2023, her 15-year-old son, DaJuan Brown, was shot and killed when a mentally ill man dressed in body armor gunned down five people at random on the streets of Kingsessing.

    Then, two years later, almost to the day, police say Thomas’ son, Daquan Brown, was one of at least 15 people who fired guns aimlessly down the 1500 block of Etting Street, leaving three dead and 10 others wounded.

    It’s a symmetry almost too painful for the mother to reconcile: one son killed in a mass shooting, another behind bars, charged with committing one.

    Last month, Thomas, 37, sat inside the Philadelphia courthouse and faced the man who killed her youngest son and set in motion the crumbling of her family.

    From left to right: Daquan Brown, Nyshyia Thomas, Tyejuan Brown, and Nesiyah Thomas-Brown, at the funeral for 15-year-old DaJuan Brown in July 2023.

    This week, she will return, but to sit on the other side of the room — to see her eldest son in shackles, seated behind plexiglass, charged with three counts of murder, nine counts of attempted murder, and causing a catastrophe and riot.

    She said her 21-year-old son feared for his life when he fired his legally owned gun twice down Etting Street the night of July 7, and that prosecutors have charged him with killings he didn’t commit.

    But she also feels for the families of the victims — one of them her son’s close friend — and imagines that, if she were in their shoes, she would want everyone who fired a gun to face consequences.

    “From being on both sides of this, it’s overwhelming, it’s unfair,” she said. “But I understand.”

    Nyshyia Thomas (right) with Tyejuan Brown and Nesiyah Thomas-Brown inside their South Philadelphia home.

    The July 7 party on Etting Street was one of two on the block that weekend celebrating the July Fourth holiday and the lives of some young men from the neighborhood who had been killed in recent years. Daquan Brown grew up about a block away and went to see childhood friends, his mother said.

    Shortly after 1 a.m., police said, gunfire erupted. Officers responded to find that more than 120 bullets had been fired down the street in nearly all directions, striking neighbors’ homes and cars — and 13 partygoers.

    Three men died. Zahir Wylie, 23, was struck in the chest, and Jason Reese, 19, was shot in the head. Azir Harris, 27, who used a wheelchair after being paralyzed in an earlier shooting, was struck in the back.

    Initially, police thought someone had shot up the party in a targeted attack. But after reviewing video footage, interviewing witnesses, and analyzing ballistics, detectives now believe the partygoers may have unintentionally shot each other.

    Police investigate a mass shooting on the 1500 block of South Etting Street on July 7, 2025.

    After people heard what they thought was the sound of gunfire — someone at the gathering may have shot once into the air or a car passing by may have backfired — at least 15 people pulled out their weapons and sprayed dozens of shots down the block, police said.

    Brown, police said, was among them. As gunfire erupted, he took cover between cars and fired two shots down the block, according to two law enforcement sources who asked not to be named to discuss an ongoing investigation.

    Investigators don’t know whether any of the shots Brown fired struck or killed anyone, the sources said. A full ballistics report is still pending, though it may never be able to determine whose bullets struck each victim.

    Four other men have also been charged with murder and related crimes.

    Thomas has tried to come to terms with the police narrative. She is adamant that her son, having fired only two shots, shouldn’t be charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. He feared for his life and acted in self-defense, she said.

    At the same time, she said, had it been her son who was shot and killed that night, she would not want to hear from anyone trying to make sense of it.

    Tyejuan Brown and a family member hold Nyshyia Thomas at the funeral of their son, DaJuan Brown, on July 15, 2023. DaJuan’s brother, Daquan, stands to right of Tyejuan.

    Still, she finds herself doing that. Brown, who worked as a security guard and has no criminal record, only started carrying the 9mm handgun because of what happened to his brother, she said.

    She remembered talking to him before he bought the weapon last year.

    “Mom, I lost my brother,” Thomas said he told her. “Y’all not burying me.”

    “I kissed him,” she said. “I told him I respect it.”

    Brown’s father, Tyejuan, is also jailed with him.

    On the night of July 7, she and Tyejuan, the father of her three children, were talking on the porch of her home when they heard dozens of gunshots coming from Etting Street. Tyejuan Brown, she said, took off running toward the party where his son was gathered.

    When Thomas reached the block, she said, she found Tyejuan and Daquan covered in blood from carrying bodies to police cruisers.

    But police said that when they reviewed surveillance footage from that night, they saw Tyejuan Brown rushing down the street holding a gun, which he is barred from owning because of drug, gun, and assault convictions.

    He was arrested in early August and charged with illegal gun possession.

    Nyshyia Thomas holds Tyejuan Brown during an interview in 2023 about the loss of their youngest son, DaJuan.

    Four days later, they came for his son.

    Until recently, Daquan Brown and his father were housed in the same block at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and would speak to each other through a shared cell wall.

    Brown is held without bail. Thomas said her family has gathered the $25,000 necessary for the father’s bail, but he has told them not to post it.

    “I’m not coming out without my son,” Thomas said he told her.

    On the outside, Thomas and her 15-year-old daughter, Nesiyah, are left to grapple with the absence of the three men in their lives they love most.

    “I lost one son to gun violence,” Thomas said. “I’ll be damned if I let the system take my other one from me.”

    Nyshyia Thomas hugs a photo of her son, DaJuan Brown, on what would have been his 18th birthday in September. Brown was shot and killed in a random mass shooting in July 2023.
  • Man who killed five people in the Kingsessing mass shooting pleads guilty, is sentenced to decades in prison

    Man who killed five people in the Kingsessing mass shooting pleads guilty, is sentenced to decades in prison

    The man who walked through the streets of Kingsessing and shot people at random in 2023, killing five and wounding five others in one of Philadelphia’s deadliest mass shootings, pleaded guilty Wednesday to multiple counts of murder and was sentenced to decades in prison.

    Kimbrady Carriker, 43, admitted that on the evening of July 3, 2023, he calmly walked through a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood dressed in body armor and wearing a ski mask, and pointed his AR-15-style rifle at seemingly random passersby — then pulled the trigger.

    He killed five people: DaJuan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 21; Dymir Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; and Joseph Wamah Jr., 31.

    Five others were injured: a 13-year-old boy he shot multiple times in the legs, and a mother who was driving with her 2-year-old twins and 10-year-old niece when he fired more than a dozen bullets into her car.

    Wamah was killed first in the early morning of July 2, targeted in his home for reasons that remain unclear. Carriker returned to Wamah’s block nearly two days later, armed with the same gun, and shot the others.

    Carriker’s admission to the killings marks the end of the legal saga in a shooting that shocked the city, shattered families’ lives, and traumatized a community.

    “This was 14 minutes of terror for the residents of the Kingsessing neighborhood,” Assistant District Attorney Robert Wainwright said of Carriker’s carnage.

    Prosecutors say surveillance video showed Kimbrady Carriker, dressed in a ballistic vest and ski mask, walking through Southwest Philadelphia shooting people at random on July 3, 2023.

    Carriker’s attorneys had been expected to argue at trial that he was legally insane when he gunned down his victims, and that he should be housed in a secure psychiatric facility for most of his life, not state prison.

    Carriker suffered from “severe delusions and religious preoccupations” and “had a fixed illusion that he was working for the National Security Agency,” said Gregg Blender, assistant defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

    Even after he was arrested, taken to Norristown State Hospital, and medicated, he believed that he had done something wrong only because the “National Security Association personnel did not come and rescue me,” Blender said he told doctors.

    Prosecutors disagreed that Carriker was legally insane and said his actions were deliberate and he should spend the rest of his life in state prison. But as they prepared for trial, an expert hired by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office interviewed Carriker and agreed with defense lawyers that he did not appear to know that what he was doing that night was wrong.

    Prosecutors did not want to risk that a jury might find Carriker not guilty by reason of insanity, Wainwright said. So they offered Carriker the opportunity to plead guilty to five counts of third-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, and gun crimes. They asked a judge to sentence him to 37½ to 75 years in prison.

    On Wednesday, Carriker agreed.

    Police gather evidence near 56th Street and Chester Avenue after the mass shooting on July 3, 2023.

    Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced Carriker to the agreed-upon decades behind bars. The judge said that, in his 15 years of handling homicide cases, this was the worst he had seen, but that he would respect the deal reached by prosecutors and Carriker’s defense team.

    “It traumatized an entire community,” the judge said of the shooting. “It traumatized an entire city.”

    Survivors of the shooting, and loved ones of the people who died, spoke emotionally in court Wednesday of the devastation of that July night, and the lasting impact on their lives.

    The father of Joseph Wamah Jr., consumed by the trauma of finding his son’s dead body inside his home, died earlier this year. His daughter said he could not mend his broken heart, and spiraled into a health crisis.

    Jonah Wamah, the father of Joseph Wamah, one of the victims in the Kingsessing mass shooting, spoke of the impact of losing his son in June 2024. He died earlier this year, in September, after his family said he could not recover from the grief of his son’s killing.

    “He faded in front of my eyes,” Jasmine Wamah said of her father.

    Other family members spoke of being hospitalized for their mental health, of looking after children without fathers and caring for kids with bullet scars in their legs.

    Odessa Brown spoke of holding her 15-year-old grandson as he bled out from his injuries.

    “When DaJuan was born, he was given to me and I held him in his arms,” she said. “And that day, I held him when he was on the ground, dying, praying, asking God, please save my child.”

    Ralph Moralis’ daughter, Taneisha Moralis, said that, at six months pregnant, she can’t stop thinking about how her child will never know their grandfather.

    And Charlotte Clark, the girlfriend of Dymir Stanton, said she struggles to get up each day to care for their daughter, who was only 3 when her father was killed.

    “I am still yearning for him from my soul. It makes me crazy,” she said, shaking.

    She said she hoped Carriker would rot in prison for what he took from her family.

    Nyshyia Thomas misses her son, DaJuan, every day. At the sentencing of her son’s killer on Wednesday, she said: “I will never get to see his face as a grown man. I will always just know the child.”

    A killing spree

    Carriker’s killing spree began shortly after midnight on July 2, when he showed up at Wamah’s home on the 1600 block of South 56th Street. He shot multiple bullets through the door, then walked in and shot Wamah nine times.

    It remains unclear why Carriker targeted Wamah. Police did not know he had been killed until days later.

    Nearly two days later, just before 8:30 p.m., Carriker returned to that block with the same rifle and a semiautomatic handgun. First, he fired 18 shots into the Jeep of Octavia Brown, a young woman driving her 2-year-old twins and 10-year-old niece to a family barbecue.

    One of the toddlers was shot multiple times in the leg, and the other twin was grazed by a bullet. Glass shards exploded into Brown’s face and eye. The boys survived their injuries, but the family was traumatized. Brown said Wednesday that her son still has pain in his legs from the shooting.

    As nearby police rushed to the scene, Carriker walked south down 56th Street, coming across 13-year-old Ryan Moss and shooting him multiple times in the legs. His friend, DaJuan Brown, was on his grandmother’s porch and ran out to help his friend. DaJuan and a responding officer found the boy screaming for help behind a car.

    As DaJuan ran home for help, Carriker shot him multiple times, killing him.

    Carriker continued on, next shooting Moralis as he got out of his car. Then, as he reached Greenway Avenue, he came to face Lashyd Merritt leaving his home, and shot him. Both men died.

    Carriker then turned up South Frazier Street, where he shot and killed Dymir Stanton. Stanton’s brother, Kaadir, shot at Carriker in self-defense as he tried to get to his brother.

    Philadelphia police responded to a sprawling scene nearly a mile long. Officer Ryan Howell ran toward the sounds of gunfire, then found Carriker in a dark alleyway. The gunman quickly surrendered.

    Police Officer Ryan Howell’s body worn camera footage showed how he found Kimbrady Carriker surrendering in a narrow alleyway.

    ‘I am sorry’

    Prosecutors said Carriker told Howell “good job” as he took him into custody, and said, “I’m out here helping you guys.” Law enforcement sources have said Carriker told police that the shooting spree was an attempt to help authorities address the city’s gun violence crisis, and that God would be sending more people to help.

    Carriker’s attorneys said he was profoundly delusional and did not understand the impact of his actions.

    Blender, of the defender association, said Wednesday that there was nothing he could say to comfort to the victims’ families — or the relatives of Carriker, who live with their own guilt.

    “He was under a mental health disease that prevented him from understanding what was going,” Blender said. “It is not an excuse. It is not to justify this horrific, horrific behavior.”

    Later in the sentencing, Carriker, dressed in a red jumpsuit, attempted to apologize.

    “All I ever wanted to do was help my community. I never meant to cause this harm,” he said. “I am sorry for the pain I have caused. I would take it back, but I can’t, so I will say that I am sorry and maybe one day you can forgive me.”

    After the hearing, the heartbroken families poured into the streets.

    A man who said he was like a father to Carriker said: “All families are hurting. If there’s anything that we could ever say, it’s that we are sorry that this happened.”

    And the loves ones of the victims left with little comfort. Wamah’s sister did not get the answer to the question that she says haunts her every day: “Why?”

    When she asked Carriker in court, he said nothing.

    Ne’siyah Thomas-Brown, left, sister of Da’Juan Brown, and, Odessa Brown, right, grandmother, outside the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice, in Philadelphia, December 17, 2025.
  • A flier showing the KKK was posted in Southwest Philly. A ward leader wants to calm fears.

    A flier showing the KKK was posted in Southwest Philly. A ward leader wants to calm fears.

    When a Southwest Philly resident reported a KKK flier had been taped to a pole outside their home this week, people got angry.

    The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission looked into the incident and put out a statement denouncing hate. Angry commenters on the 51st Ward’s Facebook page about the flier dared white supremacists to show their faces.

    But 51st Ward Democratic leader Gregory Benjamin said while he understands the alarm and does not intend to dismiss people’s concerns, he believes this all may be some kind of misunderstanding.

    “We want to calm that,” he said.

    On Tuesday, a neighbor called Benjamin to let him know that they’d discovered a flier depicting members of the KKK on an electrical pole outside their home on the 5100 block of Chester Avenue.

    A flier posted earlier this week in Southwest Philly is a copy of the cover from a book titled “Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s”.

    The flier is black-and-white copy of the cover of a book written by University of Pittsburgh sociologist Kathleen M. Blee, Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s. The cover features a photograph of three generations of klans-people — an older woman, a younger adult woman, and a baby — all wearing white pointed robes, with a cross and American flag behind them.

    It’s unclear what message whoever put up the flier intended to send. Blee’s book, originally published in 1991, is a study of the role that women played in the Jim Crow-era KKK and the covert ways they carried out the Klan’s mission, not an endorsement of the group’s ideology. The first page of the book describes the Klan as “one of U.S. history’s most vicious campaigns of prejudice and hatred.”

    The flier still raised concerns. Residents contacted the Human Relations Commission, and its Philadelphia advisory council was notified, as well as police. It’s possible another identical flier was posted nearby around the same time, Benjamin said, but all fliers have since been removed.

    No person or group has taken responsibility for the flier so far. While there is no indication the flier was put up by a white supremacist group, the manner in which it was posted can still be harmful, said Chad Dion Lassiter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

    “These things, they take an emotional toll on individuals,” he said.

    Even if the flier was a piece of trolling or a message targeted at white people, Lassiter said it was crucial not to ignore it.

    “We take all of these things [seriously]… we’re in a moment where people want to continue to deny the surge of white nationalism and white supremacy,” he said.

    Representatives of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission will attend the 51st Ward’s monthly community meeting on Saturday at noon at the Kingsessing Library, located at 1201 S. 51st St.

    Benjamin said the meeting would be an opportunity for community members to share more information about the incident and ease any remaining tension. He said he hopes this experience will encourage neighbors to connect more and communicate better.

    “Maybe we can bring something constructive out of this. Demonstrate that the community is more interested in [doing] something positive than anything else,” he said.

    Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the publication date of Blee’s book. It was originally published in 1991.

  • West Philly affordable housing project could finally advance, almost 6 years after it was proposed

    West Philly affordable housing project could finally advance, almost 6 years after it was proposed

    An affordable housing project slated for a junkyard in Cedar Park took a step forward Wednesday, when a Philadelphia judge rejected a neighbor’s challenge. The courtroom victory brings the 104-unit, two-building project, which was conceived in 2020, closer to reality.

    Common Pleas Court Judge Idee Fox ruled that the new zoning of a triangular group of parcels on Warrington Avenue, which allows for buildings up to seven stories, was legal.

    Melissa Johanningsmeier, who lives next to the planned development, sued the city to stop the project in 2023, arguing that the building was inconsistent with the city’s goal of preserving single-family homes in Cedar Park.

    Johanningsmeier said in court filings she would be harmed by the parking, traffic, and loss of green space if the project were to proceed.

    The homeowner told Fox during a two-day October bench trial that there was widespread discontent with the project in the neighborhood.

    The judge seemed skeptical, as Johanningsmeier’s attorney didn’t provide witnesses or evidence to support claims of widespread backlash to the project that has been promoted by City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.

    It was not for her to decide whether the project was the best idea, Fox said, but whether the zoning was constitutional.

    “If the community is unhappy with what’s being done, they have the right to express their concerns to the councilwoman at the ballot box,” Fox said.

    Junkyard controversy

    The project dates to 2020, when New York affordable housing developer Omni formulated plans to add 174 reasonably priced apartments to the West Philadelphia neighborhood.

    But the developer’s plans for the junkyard at 50th and Warrington met opposition due to the proposed buildings’ height — six stories — and parking spaces for less than a third of the units.

    Omni’s plan required permission from the Zoning Board of Adjustment to move forward, which was more likely to succeed with neighborhood support. So they compromised.

    A new design unveiled in 2021 pushed the buildings back to the edge of the site, to avoid putting neighboring homes in shadow. A surface parking lot would offer 100 spaces for the 104 affordable apartments.

    These concessions appeased almost all of the critical neighbors and community groups. Many of them supported Omni before the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which granted the project permission to move forward.

    But Johanningsmeier remained a critic. She lives on the border of the property and challenged the zoning board’s ruling in Common Pleas Court. Judge Anne Marie Coyle ruled in her favor, arguing the new building “would unequivocally tower over the surrounding family homes.”

    In the aftermath, Gauthier passed a bill to allow the project to move forward without permission from the zoning board. Johanningsmeier then sued over that legislation as well.

    Councilmember Jamie Gauthier in City Council in 2024.

    Affordable housing and fruit analogies

    The issue at the heart of the case was whether a zoning change to allow for large multifamily buildings was considered spot zoning on the small parcel, which Johanningsmeier’s lawyer argued was inconsistent with the types on buildings on surrounding properties.

    Just because the “mega apartment buildings” are for residential use doesn’t make the project similar to the surrounding zoning, which mostly allows single-family homes and duplexes, Edward Hayes, a Fox Rothschild attorney representing Johanningsmeier, told Judge Fox on Wednesday.

    “A cranberry and a watermelon are fruit,” Hayes said. “They are not the same.”

    And while affordable housing is a laudable cause, the attorney said, that doesn’t mean that the city should “shove it down the throat of a community” in the form of large buildings that are out of character with the rest of the neighborhood.

    An attorney representing the developer, Evan Lechtman of Blank Rome, told the judge existing buildings of similar height are nearby, across the railroad track in Kingsessing.

    “We are transforming a blighted, dilapidated junkyard into affordable housing,” the developer’s attorney said.

    Johanningsmeier’s lawyer, Hayes, declined to comment after the ruling, which could be appealed.

    Gauthier celebrated the outcome as a victory against gentrification.

    “Lower-income neighbors belong in amenity-rich communities like this one, where they can easily access jobs, healthcare, groceries, and other necessities,” said Gauthier. ”I hope the court’s ruling puts an end to gratuitous delays.”

    Housing advocates note that the years of neighborhood meetings and lawsuits over the project are an example of why housing, and especially affordable units, has become so expensive to build in the United States.

    In the face of determined opposition from even a single foe, projects can incur millions in additional costs.

    “It’s a travesty that one deep-pocketed opponent has been able to block access to housing for over 100 families in my neighborhood for years,” said Will Tung, a neighbor of the project and a volunteer with the urbanist advocacy group 5th Square. “It’s more expensive than ever to rent or buy here, and this project would be a welcome change to its current use as a derelict warehouse.”