May 30, 2022
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
Philadelphia has now recorded more than 200 homicides in 2022 following a deadly Memorial Day Weekend in the city when 12 people died in 15 shootings.
The city reached a somber milestone after 12 were killed in 15 shootings between Saturday and Monday morning.
Philadelphia counted its 206th homicide when police found a 66-year-old man shot multiple times in East Germantown on Monday morning, FOX29 reports. Although medics attempted to save him at the scene, he later died.
Officers also found a 16-year-old girl and a 21-year-old woman dead from gunshot wounds following a Memorial Day party in Port Richmond, Fox News says.
This came after a 37-year-old man and his 10-year-old son were killed in a drive-by shooting in Wissinoming on Sunday night, NBC10 reports.
Another 15 people were injured by gunfire this weekend, including a 4-year-old boy who shot himself in the hand with his father's gun.
The toddler was left alone in a car while his dad was getting a haircut and is expected to make a full recovery, FOX29 says. The father will face charges over the incident.
Nearly 200 kids have been shot in Philadelphia so far this year. Repeated instances of students bringing guns to class has led the city's school district to implement new searches for middle school students.
Homicides will likely happen at a faster pace this summer, as crime rates in Philadelphia and elsewhere generally rise when the weather is warmer.
But this isn't necessarily due to unsupervised kids getting in trouble while out of school. In fact, juveniles are more likely to commit crimes on a school day, FBI researchers found.
The real culprit may be the additional social interaction that happens when people spend more time outdoors during the summer months, NewsNation reports. There’s simply a greater number of interactions happening, which means there's also more opportunities for them to go awry.
Between 2010 and 2017, crime and disorderly conduct spiked on warm days in Philadelphia, especially on days that were unseasonably hot during a time of year that's usually cold, Drexel University researchers found.
Some have also concluded that high temperatures can make people more irritable and likely to engage in violent behavior. This relationship between heat and crime is more pronounced in low income neighborhoods, researchers at the University of Southern California found.
Although Philadelphia is clearly still in the throes of a gun violence epidemic, the situation is slightly better than it was this time in 2021.
By Memorial Day weekend last year, Philadelphia police had already recorded at least 212 homicides. The city counted more homicides in 2021 than in any year on record.
A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department couldn't confirm that more than 200 homicides have occurred so far in 2022, but did say that the 194 homicide stat listed on the agency's site Monday afternoon was out of date.
