Philadelphia: 50 Shot, Nine of Them Fatally in Violent Easter Weekend

Holy week did not slow down Philadelphia’s violent crime crisis as multiple shootings left 50 people were shot, nine of them fatally, in a violent easter weekend across the city. Among the victims were a three-year-old, who was shot in the hand, and a 13-year-old shot, who was shot in the leg, police said Saturday.

Since Thursday afternoon, there have been multiple shootings involving three or more victims. The latest occurred on Sunday evening when four men were shot, qualifying the incident as a “mass shooting”, which is a shooting that involves four or more people, according to FBI crime statistics. All four victims were transported to local hospitals and are reported to be in stable condition.

Of the abundance of shootings across Philadelphia over the weekend, the city recorded nine fatalities. Three people were shot and killed in the span of three hours while close to a dozen others were injured on Saturday night. Early Sunday morning, Philadelphia police officers responded to the 300 block of E Ontario Street, according to police. Authorities say an unidentified man in his 30’s was shot once in the lower back and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Despite the violent Easter Weekend, Philadelphia’s homicide rate is down 10% when compared with this time last year. The weekend’s numbers rival those of the mid-summer months, however, where warm weather leads to a spike in homicides.

Even if the current rate holds, Philadelphia is still on pace for more than 500 homicides. Before last year, the only time the city had reached this grisly benchmark was in 1990, during the height of the crack epidemic. The city recorded exactly 500 murders in 1990, but soared past that number in 2021 with 559 homicides.

Philadelphia has recorded a little under 600 shootings in 2022, representing close to a 2% increase from last year. So far in 2022, there have been 638 Violations of Uniform Firearms Act arrests (VUFA), well below the 949 at this date last year, which is a 33% decrease. In addition, the Philadelphia Police Department has seized 1,600 crime guns this year, and 134 privately made firearms or “ghost guns”, according to the Philadelphia Tribune.

https://nationalfile.com/philadelphia-50-shot-nine-of-them-fatally-in-violent-easter-weekend/

Spanish police seize nearly 3 tonnes of cocaine hidden on fishing boat

Five people have been arrested after a fishing boat carrying nearly 3 tonnes of cocaine was intercepted off the Canary Islands, Spanish police said.

A Spanish air patrol noticed the suspicious boat, the AKT 1, and it was stopped on April 13 by a Spanish coast guard patrol about 300 nautical miles south of the Spanish archipelago as it tried to pass itself off as another fishing boat.

Spanish police seized 2.9 tonnes of cocaine, estimated to have a street value of 72 million euros ($A105 million), which had been hidden in one of the boat's fuel tanks.

The boat was returned to Gran Canaria on Saturday and the five detainees were remanded in custody in Las Palmas.

"When we boarded, [officers] observed the fishing boat was transporting a significant number of bundles usually used for cocaine trafficking, so the five crew members of the boat — four of Turkish nationality and a Georgian citizen — were immediately arrested," a spokesman for the Spanish Civil Guard said.

Police said they were focusing on cracking down on what they call the "African route" for South American traffickers who transfer loads of drugs to fishing vessels in the middle of the Atlantic before smuggling them into Europe.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-18/spanish-police-sieze-cocaine-off-fishing-boat/100996652