By the numbers, homicides are significantly down in the City of Brotherly Love, but as much as the total number of crimes reported are down, we have to remember: the only acceptable amount of crime is zero.
With reports like this, it’s hard to believe the number of homicides is down:
Ballistics tests show five guns were fired in Lemon Hill shooting that struck 11 people, police say
Philly police now believe five guns were fired in the shooting in Fairmount Park on Memorial Day.
by Ellie Rushing | Thursday, May 29, 2025 | 4″:40 PM EDT
Investigators now believe five guns were fired into the crowd gathered at Lemon Hill on the night of Memorial Day in a shooting that left two people dead and nine others wounded.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said ballistics testing shows that the shooters, standing adjacent to the Lemon Hill Mansion in Fairmount Park, used five weapons to fire dozens of shots into a group of young people around 10:30 p.m. Monday.
Police said at least one of the guns was equipped with a switch, a device that allows a firearm to shoot at a faster rate, mimicking a machine gun. Videos posted on social media showed panicked crowds of young people screaming as they ran through the darkness from rapid-fire gunshots — something Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel likened to the “sound of war.”
Eleven people, ranging in age from 15 to 23, were struck by gunfire, and two died: Mikhail Bowers, 21, and Amya Devlin, 23. Police said the other victims, one of whom was shot in the head, were stable as of Tuesday.
Police initially said they believed three shooters fired weapons into the crowd, but additional ballistics testing showed the more than 20 spent shell casings recovered at the scene came from five different guns, Vanore said.
It is possible that the number of shooters is correct, and that two of them used two separate guns.
On reading reporter Ellie Rushing’s story, I was reminded of something my good friend Robert Stacy McCain wrote, in a completely unrelated story:
In appealing the lengthy sentence, his attorneys argued that “Hayes has an IQ of 72, and a record of untreated mental health problems,” and also, “Hayes’s father was incarcerated for most of Hayes’s childhood.
Mr McCain’s story dealt with yet another bit of crime, which was fueled by utter stupidity, which leads me to ask: just how f(ornicating) stupid do the three, or four, or five, Fairmont Park shooters have to be? The police do not yet have a motive, or, if they do, it wasn’t disclosed to Miss Rushing, but:
(Deputy Commissioner Vanore) said the motive remains unclear, as does whether the shooters attended the Lemon Hill gathering and how they traveled to and from the park. People with affiliations to a wide range of cliques and gangs in the city were in the park that night, he said, and officials are still sorting through what, if any, connection that may have had to the crime.
We don’t know if it was a gun battle between gangs, or if it was one “clique” shooting at another, or if the victims who were killed or wounded were the ones actually targeted.
But we do know that the whole thing was stupid. If there were “a wide range of cliques and gangs” in the park, those gang members are going to know who was shooting, even if the police do not, and that means that rival gangs are going to be out for revenge; that’s just the way these things work. So, if Jaymarlon Hayes, the 19-year-old sentenced to 71.5 years in Mr McCain’s story had an IQ of 72, we can figure out that these three or four or five shooters in Fairmont Park also have IQs near room temperature. If young Mr Hayes’ father was locked up for most of his son’s life, the odds are pretty good that the Lemon Hill/Fairmont Park shooters’ fathers were similarly behind bars.
Sadly, while you can try to teach the ignorant, you just can’t fix stupid.