Philadelphia police say Kingsessing mass shooting suspect was ‘shooting aimlessly’; Krasner, Kenney call for stricter gun legislation

Philadelphia officials released updates on Tuesday afternoon regarding the mass shooting that left five people dead and two others injured in Southwest Philadelphia near Chester and Springfield avenues and South 56th Street.

Philadelphia police released the names of the five victims killed: Daujan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 22, from the 5500 block of Greenway Ave.; Dymir Stanton, 29, from the 1700 block of S. Frazier St.; Joseph Wamah, Jr., 31, from the 1600 block of S. 56th St.; and Ralph Moralis, 59, from the 1700 block of S. 56th St.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw expressed outrage and disgust about the tragedy.

Kenney said the Southwest Philadelphia community is traumatized. “This country needs to reexamine its conscience and find out how to get guns out of dangerous people’s hands,” Kenney said. “We are begging Congress to protect lives and do something about America’s gun problem.”

Philadelphia police said the suspect, who has been named by sources as Kimbrady Carriker, was wearing a bulletproof vest, a ski mask, and “shooting aimlessly” using an AR-15 assault rifle.

Ernest Ransom, head of the Philadelphia Police Department’s homicide unit, said the suspect fired at a car operated by a mother who was taking her twins home. Ransom said one twin sustained a gunshot wound to the leg and their sibling’s eyes were damaged by broken glass.

District Attorney Larry Krasner says his office is working to support the families of the homicide victims and residents in the neighborhood impacted by the shooting. He said the suspect is in custody and will be facing multiple accounts of murder, multiple counts of aggravated assault, and weapons charges. The suspect will be held without bail.

Both Krasner and Kenney spoke passionately against Pennsylvania’s lack of strict gun legislation.

“It is disgusting, the lack of proper gun legislation that we have in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Krasner said, “It is disgusting that you can go to New Jersey and find a whole list of reasonable gun regulation that we don’t have …. Some of that legislation might have made a difference here,” Krasner said.

Six shooting victims were transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where four were pronounced dead. Two other victims are currently in stable conditions, Ransom said. Ransom said the fifth victim who died was found in his home on the 1600 block of South 56th Street hours after the incident.

There was a second person investigated for gun use on the scene, Krasner said. But he said the person’s gun discharge was in self-defense, and that investigation is still ongoing.

Krasner said more details on the mass shooting suspect will be released on Wednesday.