A VIEW FROM THE INSIDE
Telling the stories
After many years of decline, the number of homicides and shootings in Philadelphia and some other cities is on the rise. Why is this happening? What is being done about it? How are children, families and communities touched by it? Through photos, stories and voices, The Inquirer is exploring the issue of violence and its repercussions.
STATISTICAL MAPS
This map looks at crime rates in the city, particularly in the city’s nine most crime-infested police districts, which are targeted for a new crime-fighting initiative.
Here is a map charting each of the city of Philadelphia's homicides by name of victim, age, race, weapon, date and location from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2007.
This map shows people who were shot throughout the city of Philadelphia by age, race and sex from Jan. 1 to May 18, 2007. It also shows the time of the shooting.
The Victims
This occasional series done by Inquirer staff photographer April Saul in 2006 attempts to capture the look, the sound, and the feel of the loss of children to violence.
Philadelphia Homicide Victims
Here is a table listing homicide victims from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2006.
Philadelphia Homicide Victims
Here is a table listing homicide victims from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2006.
VIOLENCE IN PHILADELPHIA, 2004-2005
As homicide rates in many large cities are dropping, the number in Philadelphia has increased 11 percent since 2004 - one of the sharpest jumps in the United States. The number: 380.
Homicides of people under 18 had dropped precipitously between 1994 and the end of 2002 - from 50 a year to 21. But the deaths spiked in 2003 - up to 30. An Inquirer analysis found that of 129 people under 18 killed since 2000, more than half were killed by guns.
VIOLENCE IN PHILADELPHIA
Here is the prepared text of Mayor Street's speech Thursday night on his administration's response to the wave of violence in the city. He made the remarks during a televised news conference.
RESOURCES
2005 report from panel created by Gov. Rendell.
- The slayings followed three forums Friday on how to stem the city's problem. The year's homicide count is 127.At least 10 people died over the weekend as bullets cut through several Philadelphia neighborhoods - including Center City, where homicides are rare - and at a barbecue in West Philadelphia. At least nine others were wounded in shootings or stabbings.
- Searching for ways to reduce the tide of gun violence in Philadelphia, a panel of state lawmakers heard testimony today from an array of civic leaders at City Hall.
- 'No Snitchin' ' is part of a wide moral breakdown.In broad daylight, at least three people fire 40 shots in front of 20 witnesses, killing a mother trying to protect her children on a narrow little street in Southwest Philadelphia. And nobody sees a thing?
- A war between teenage gangs injected terror and chaos into a West Philadelphia antiviolence vigil when an 18-year-old woman was shot in the back, police said.
- For three hours yesterday, police, hospital aides and others painted a grim portrait for a panel of state legislators.More than 100 murders so far this year, more than 80 percent of them involving handguns. More than 400 shootings, an average of five a day. A 40 percent increase in homicides since 2002. Almost 85 percent of shooters and victims have criminal records. More than $100 million in hospital charges for assault-related medical care. Not enough jobs or social services, and way too many guns.
- A stop-the-violence rally near 61st and Market Streets in West Philadelphia last night was interrupted by gunfire.
- Some suspects are girlfriends buying for ex-cons, officials said. Others do it for drugs or cash.The father of Twanita Johnson's baby needed a gun, but he couldn't buy one, because he's a convict. So Johnson, 21, who had no criminal record, went to a Bucks County gun shop and bought her baby's father a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol, law-enforcement officials said.
- An afternoon showdown in Southwest Phila. happened at the same time as two other shooting cases, one fatal.A mother of four was fatally shot and three other people were wounded yesterday after an afternoon gun battle erupted on a street in Southwest Philadelphia.
- To Michael "MIC" Ta'bon and his friend Lionel Dunbar, the names are a measure of the social health of the city, and painting them on a wall in the Nicetown section of North Philadelphia is a way to make sure they are not forgotten.
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West Philadelphia students speak out
- It was a typical morning at West Philadelphia High School - students, bundled up against the cold and walking to class, pouring off buses and rushing into the imposing century-old building.
- Again, a teacher was attacked. The school district says it will increase hallway patrols and break the school into smaller units.Violence-plagued West Philadelphia High School will be broken up into smaller schools and more adults will patrol its hallways, officials announced after yet another teacher was assaulted there yesterday - the seventh in two weeks and at least the 18th this school year.
- Three teachers also were assaulted elsewhere as the focus shifted to a search for solutions.In the latest acts of violence in the Philadelphia School District, an elementary school principal was knocked to the ground by a female student yesterday and three teachers were assaulted in the last two days.
- Mayor Street inspected the troops at the 12th Police District roll call for the cameras yesterday afternoon and announced a plan to flood the streets of violence-plagued Southwest Philadelphia with officers and social services.
- The city is deploying 80 more officers to the beleaguered 12th District. A public roll call underlined the commitment.In an unusual display of police might, Mayor Street and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson yesterday announced plans to deploy 80 additional police officers in the 12th Police District in Southwest Philadelphia.
- Decrying "an overall culture of disrespect," leaders called for a return to the basics of learning.A small but earnest group of student leaders at West Philadelphia High School spoke out yesterday, calling for an end to "an overall culture of disrespect" at their embattled school.
- CLEARWATER, Fla. - It is not uncommon for teams to shut the clubhouse door and have early-morning meetings in spring training, but the Phillies are the only club in baseball to have had one of this kind.
- Shooting victim James M. Reif Jr. impressed friends and former colleagues at the Broome County Sheriff's Department in Upstate New York as a guy who overcame a disability to become a successful businessman.
- They had hoped to restore a historic club.Watson International Inc., named after the father and son who built IBM into a computer giant, had big plans for the company's former corporate country club-resort, on the edge of 600 acres of a nature preserve and a golf course in Upstate New York.
- The first horror came in February. A 10-year-old child was shot in the head on his way to school, killed in the cross fire of battling drug gangs.
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