“Diverse” city crime rate explodes
On the streets of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods, just trying to get ahead can get you killed. “You got a good-looking girlfriend, you’re going to get shot; someone wants her,” said 17-year-old Andre, who asked his last name not be used for this article.
“If you’re getting a little money, you’re going to get shot — someone wants that. Any way you look at it, it’s just a bad situation.”
Andre is caught up in the tough life on the streets of Philadelphia’s Southside neighborhood. At 13, he watched his brother get shot and killed in front of his home by another teenager. By 15, he was wanted for two counts of armed robbery and theft.
“It makes you feel stronger, powerful, a bigger man,” he said of having a gun. “You even walk differently when you have a gun on you.”
He and others like him are the new face of violence in Philadelphia — a younger, harder generation that lives and dies by the gun. Though it’s spread throughout the city, the problem of youth violence is most acute in the southern, southwestern and northern parts.
Over the past couple of years, Philadelphia’s murder rate reached highs not seen since the 1980s, according to the Philadelphia Police Department. So far this year, more than 315 people have been killed, a pace of well over a murder a day, police said. That’s a higher rate, according to FBI statistics, than much larger cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.