Gunfire in Strawberry Mansion wounds 9th and 10th victims citywide in 5 hours

A hail of gunfire at a Strawberry Mansion corner left two men critically wounded Tuesday night. The men were the ninth and 10th shooting victims in the city in a span of five hours.

The two victims, identified by a relative of one as Terrance Groce, 23, and Nicholas Jones, 21, were on Cumberland Street near Hollywood around 8:30 p.m. when someone opened fire on them, firing 12 shots. Bullets tore through both men's chests and backs, Chief Inspector Scott Small said at the scene.

Groce was taken to Temple University Hospital in a private vehicle; police took Jones to Temple. Both were in critical condition as of 10:30 p.m., Small said, but both were expected to survive.

A relative of Jones who asked that her identity be withheld said both men live in the neighborhood where they were shot. She said both had been hanging out on separate corners on Hollywood Street earlier in the day.

"I'm praying that they are innocent bystanders," the woman said. "I keep telling them these corners ain't good for them, these streets ain't good for them."

One bullet from the shooting blasted through a window of a corner house on Hollywood Street, where a 60-year-old man was sitting inside watching TV, police said. The bullet flew over the man's head and lodged in the wall behind him. He was not injured.

A man who lives on the block with his wife and asked that the Daily News conceal his identity said the shootings in the neighborhood are making him rethink staying on the block.

"After a minute, you just get tired," said the man, who said he grew up in the neighborhood and moved back six years ago. "I hope it will get better, but I don't see it getting no better right now."

The shooting on Cumberland Street came on the heels of another double shooting in West Philadelphia, Small said. Three minutes prior to the Cumberland Street shooting, police raced to the corner of 51st and Race streets, where two men were shot in the arms and legs. Small said both, ages 20 and 25, were stable at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Police did not know late Tuesday what motivated either shooting, and reported no arrests.

Earlier in the night, a man was shot in the face at a Sheraton hotel on Island Avenue near Industrial Highway in Southwest Philadelphia during what police said was a domestic dispute. Police said that man was in critical condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and that the suspected triggerman was arrested a short time after the shooting.

Earlier in the evening, two men were wounded in a shooting at 49th Street and Fairmount Avenue in West Philly, and another was killed in a separate shooting on Courtland Street near 5th in Feltonville, police said.

Another shooting victim drove himself to Temple University Hospital earlier in the night, Small said, but that man was uncooperative with investigators, and the scene of the shooting could not be determined.

Within the five-hour span between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., a man also committed suicide by gun in the city's Frankford section, police said, bringing the count of shooting victims in the span to 10.

At the Strawberry Mansion shooting scene, a victim's relative lamented the bloodshed on the city streets.

"It's not even summer yet," she said, shaking her head.