I have noted the city’s, and The Philadelphia Inquirer’s, response to the murder of Christine Lugo, the Dunkin’ Donuts manager senselessly killed by a robber after she had given him the money he demanded. The Inquirer’s story about the city’s response remains up on the newspaper’s website main page, at least as of 7:15 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 8th.
What isn’t on the website main page? Another murder in the City of Brotherly Love, one that occurred a little after 5:30 yesterday afternoon. It was briefly up, yesterday, but this morning? You’ve got to hunt for it.
Man killed in double shooting at North Philly corner store
A woman was also wounded in the shooting.
by Justine McDaniel | June 7, 2021
A 28-year-old man was killed in a double shooting early Monday evening at a corner store in the Nicetown section of North Philadelphia.
The man, whose name was not released, and a 53-year-old woman were shot in an aisle inside Roman Grocery, 1735 W. Butler St., just after 5:30 p.m., Philadelphia police said.
The store’s security camera footage showed a gunman coming inside the store, walking up to the man, and shooting him, firing at least four shots at close range, said Police Chief Inspector Scott Small. The gunman then turned around, left the store, and ran east down Butler Street. The man, who was struck in the chest, was the target of the shooting. Medics at the scene pronounced him dead just before 6 p.m.
The woman was hit in the chest with “stray gunfire,” Small said, and was conscious when police arrived. The woman was standing behind the intended target, near a deli counter at the back of the store’s first aisle when the gunman opened fire.
There’s more at the original.
This was a targeted hit, which leads the mind to the idea it was gang-related, or a drug hit, but it could just as easily have been personal for some reason.
A caption on the included photo of the storefront noted that the shooting was recorded on “security footage,” but if the Philadelphia Police released that footage, or a photo of the gunman from the footage, it was not shown on the Inquirer’s story.
Unlike Miss Lugo’s murder, this one will almost certainly disappear down the rathole of most Philly shootings. If it turns out that the victim was just another bad guy, nobody other than his friends and family will care.
There have been 229 murders so far this year in Philadelphia, up from 174 on the same date last year, a 31.6% increase. 229 homicides in 158 days yields a homicide rate of 1.45 per day, a pace which would leave 529 dead bodies on the city’s mean streets for the year, smashing 1990’s record of 500.