I have said before that The Philadelphia Inquirer isn’t interested in covering homicides in the city unless the victim was an ‘innocent,’ or a ‘somebody,‘ or a cute little white girl.

Well, a somebody was killed, and the Inquirer published 815 words about him:

A West Philly fashion designer and a state senator’s relative killed at a cookout are among 20 shot over the July 4th holiday

Sircarr Johnson Jr., 23, was a father, a fashion designer, and the owner of Premiere Bande clothing store in West Philly.

by Stephanie Farr | July 5, 2021



Sircarr Johnson, Jr. From his Instagram account. Click to enlarge.

Sircarr Johnson Sr. sat hunched in a chair in front of his son’s clothing store, Premiére Bande, in West Philadelphia on Monday morning, proudly dressed head-to-toe in an outfit designed by his 23-year-old son.

The glass door to the store behind him was shattered by a bullet, one of dozens fired on the street less than 12 hours before.

Johnson, who held Sircarr Johnson Jr. in his arms as his son died in the hail of gunfire Sunday night, was shattered, too.

“How the bullet don’t hit me? How it don’t hit me?” he sobbed.

Johnson’s son and namesake was one of two men killed when gunmen opened fire during a Fourth of July cookout that Johnson Jr. was having Sunday night at his store on 60th Street near Walnut.

The second victim was identified as 21-year-old Salahaldin Mahmoud in a news release from State Sen. Sharif Street Office’s Monday afternoon. The release said Mahmoud was a first cousin of Street’s wife, April.

There’s a lot more at the original.

The article is primarily about Mr Johnson’s death, but did have some bare information about other murder victims. Besides Mr Mahmoud:

• A 21-year-old man who was shot several times in his stomach and thigh on the 5900 block of Hazel Avenue in West Philadelphia at 1:53 a.m. Monday;
• An 18-year-old man who was shot in his chest at 11:21 p.m. Sunday on the 2100 block of West Sedgley Avenue in North Philadelphia; and
• A 21-year-old man who was found with a gunshot wound to his chest at 3:11 a.m. Sunday on a driveway along the 1300 block of Westbury Drive in Overbrook Park.

The Philadelphia Police reported that twenty people were shot between 1:53 AM on Sunday, July 4^th, and 4:25 AM Monday morning; five of the twenty died.

Four other shooting victims remained in critical condition, with the rest being listed as stable, including a 15-year-old boy who was shot in his leg and foot on the 6000 block of Walton Street in West Philadelphia at 10:36 p.m. Sunday.

Two teenage boys were shot shortly before 5:30 p.m. Monday near North 33d Street and West Oxford Street in Strawberry Mansion. A 14-year-old boy was shot once in the head and listed in “extremely critical” condition, police said, and a 15-year-old boy was shot once in the foot and in stable condition.

The odious District Attorney, Larry Krasner, is going to address the issue, but, if the killers are actually caught — and odds are, they won’t be — it would surprise absolutely no one if the killers turn out to be someone who could and should have been in jail, but was treated leniently by the city’s softer-than-soft-on-crime District Attorney.

Street’s office said the state senator will hold a news conference Tuesday morning at City Hall, along with Mahmoud’s family; District Attorney Larry Krasner; community leader Bilal Qayyum, president and executive director of the Father’s Day Rally Committee Inc.; and other elected officials and community leaders to “speak on this tragedy and the investigation.”

Of course, these people will blame ‘gun violence’ in general, as will the Inquirer, with barely a harsh word for the actual people who fired the shots that took so many victims. After all, talking about the people who pulled the triggers “disproportionately harms people of color and those with mental illness, while also perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community,” and we can’t have that, now can we?