They were riddled with more than 30 rounds from an AK-47, as well as shots from a Glock.  A few hours earlier, a man in his 40s was shot to death with  children playing nearby at the  Belfield Recreation Center.  The victim, 43, was shot twice in the neck, once in the face and once in the head.  Police said he died at the scene.

It was, tragically, not an unusual day in the “City of Brotherly Love.”

As of March 28, the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) reported 85 homicides since the beginning of the year — the majority of them committed by firearms.

That's a 6 percent increase over the same period last year — and if the upward trend continues, Philadelphia will be on course to beat last year's already grisly record. There were 324 murders in 2011, an increase of 6 percent over 2010.

While homicide was on the wane last year in most major U.S. cities, Philadelphia has continued to defy the national trend that has taken violent crimes like murder off the national news radar.

Continue Reading...