Two killings, two shootings in Phila. over weekend

Police were investigating two homicides and at least two shootings in the city over the weekend, capping a bloody week marred by a drug turf war and two double killings.

Detectives were still trying to find the gunmen who opened fire on Thursday, killing two members of the Mutter Street Boys, a drug network that police say controls the corner of Mutter Street and Indiana Avenue in North Philadelphia. Detectives were also looking into whether a violent shooting in the same North Philadelphia neighborhood yesterday morning was retaliation or otherwise related to the earlier killing.

In yesterday's shooting, a 31-year-old man was shot multiple times shortly after 10:30 a.m. in the 3000 block of North Front Street, police said. The man, whom police won't identify, was in critical condition at Temple University Hospital.

On Thursday, Jose Ortiz, 45, leader of the Mutter Street gang, and an associate, Roberto Beltran, 38, were killed in an open-air market by a pair of assassins, police said. Later that night, two other men were found shot to death in a house several blocks away in North Philadelphia, but police don't believe the two sets of killings were linked.

But a homicide Friday morning not far from Mutter Street was apparently retaliation for the Ortiz and Beltran slayings, police said. Luis Rivera, 32, died.

Also Friday night, around 8:30, Carlos Maldonado, 20, was shot twice in the head in a house in the 4700 block of Penn Street in the Northeast, police said. He was pronounced dead yesterday at Temple University Hospital. Police would not say whether it was tied to any of the other gun violence.

Separately, police reported the death of Derrick Nedd, 30, who was shot in the neck shortly before 2:30 a.m. yesterday at Ridge and Sedgley Avenues in Strawberry Mansion.

Another man was shot twice shortly before 12:30 a.m. yesterday in the 3100 block of F Street in West Kensington, police said. Alexander Pimentel, 18, who was shot as he was walking home, was listed in critical condition at Temple.