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The city of Philadelphia is reeling from a garbage strike that has already lasted for more than a week. Despite cancellations from headliners LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan, the Welcome America celebration went on with JoJo and Alvaro Diaz.
But the festive mood didn’t last. On Sunday night, eight people were wounded outside of a bar and lounge in a strip mall in South Philadelphia. The shooting took place after a knife fight spilled out of the club and onto a balcony. Police say they are looking for two men in the incident, including one who is believed to have exchanged fire with a security guard and an unknown man, then fled in a white Mercedes. A female passenger in the car was injured and dropped off at a hospital.
Just after that, another shooting crime scene left three injured by gunshots that began during a Fourth of July gathering near Diamond Street in North Philadelphia.
But as the holiday weekend came to an end, the violence did not. Early Monday morning, there was another shooting at what’s being described as an impromptu block party, ironically enough, in memory of four men who were killed in the area years before. No one is sure what started the conflict, but three people were fatally shot as partygoers ran for safety after the shooting started.
The incident happened on South Etting Street in South Philadelphia, where a crowd of over 100 had gathered, neighbors say.
Sadly, 24-year-old Azir Harris was one of the victims. When he was 17, Harris was shot and paralyzed while walking to the store. In the years since, his family struggled to find accessible housing for him, ultimately splitting up between two residences. His mother had to leave her job to take care of him. The family’s challenges were laid out in a series of columns by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Helen Ubañis, who wrote a column mourning his loss.
“I always feared this moment, even knowing how likely it was that one of ‘my guys’ might not make it. Not from the bullets themselves, but from the long, brutal complications that follow. Gunshot injuries devastate the body. Paralysis adds another cruel layer of danger and fragility. But this? This was different. This was devastating,” she wrote.
Harris can be seen on Ring video from the incident, which shows his girlfriend and the mother of his 1-year-old son, Aspen, trying to shield him from bullets. She was unable to move his wheelchair out of the way through parked cars and was shot herself in the process. Over 100 shots were fired on the narrow rowhouse block.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Harris’ father, Troy, was emotional as he remembered his youngest son.
“The kid fought so hard to stay here,” Troy Harris told The Inquirer. “And look … look what happened.” In an interview with Fox29, he added, “I carried him at a time when he was down, and now I can’t be there to pick him up no more and it hurts. It hurts real bad.”
Philadelphia police say the Shooting Investigations Group will be responsible for finding the shooters in both incidents. In the second incident, a $20K reward has already been issued for the identification and whereabouts of the three alleged gunmen. A photo taken from the surveillance cameras has already been released.
See social media’s reaction the string of violence below.
