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New details emerge in South Philly lounge shooting of 8 people

Police are searching for two unknown males in a shooting outside the 7 Elements lounge early Saturday morning, while more shootings and stabbings Sunday injured at least six others.

Police are still searching for two suspected gunmen involved in a shooting that injured eight people early Saturday morning outside 7 Elements lounge at Dung Phat Plaza in South Philadelphia.
Police are still searching for two suspected gunmen involved in a shooting that injured eight people early Saturday morning outside 7 Elements lounge at Dung Phat Plaza in South Philadelphia.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

New details — including about the suspected gunmen — emerged Sunday in the shooting outside a South Philadelphia lounge early Saturday morning that left eight people wounded.

Police say they now believe three men — a security guard and two unknown males — opened fire after a knife fight spilled out onto a balcony of the 7 Elements late-night lounge, located on the second floor of the two-story Dung Phat Plaza shopping center at 11th Street and Washington Avenue.

Fleeing the melee, one of the unknown men opened fire on the crowd shortly before 4 a.m. A club security guard, whom police have not named, and the other unknown man then fired a fusillade of shots at the initial shooter as he sped away in a white Mercedes, police said. A bullet crashed through the windshield of the car striking a 25-year-old female passenger in the leg, police said. She was dropped off at a hospital for treatment.

All of the victims were in stable condition, police said. No arrests have been made in the case, which is being handled by the department’s Shooting Investigation Group. It was unclear Sunday if the security guard will face charges for discharging his weapon.

Police and Philadelphia Department of Licenses & Inspections officials quickly revoked the club’s operating license for violations, and it remained closed Sunday.

Another fight leads to shooting

The morning after the lounge shooting, gunfire that erupted during a fistfight among a large gathering of young people in the courtyard of a North Philadelphia housing complex left three more people injured.

Just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday, police responded to a chaotic scene on the 2200 block of Edgley Street, near 22nd and Diamond Streets.

As young people fled the scene, which was marked with blood, as well as bullet casings and fragments, police found a man with gunshot wounds to his back and thigh. Soon, a woman and teenage male, both bleeding from gunshot injuries, arrived at Temple University Hospital in a private vehicle, police said.

A snippet of video on social media, which shows the moments before the shooting, police said, shows a group of young people dancing, some with guns out. Bursts of gunfire ring out when a fistfight breaks out among some in the group.

All three victims were reported in stable condition.

Shortly after the shooting, and just blocks from Edgley Street, an off-duty police officer was struck by a car with a visible bullet hole in the windshield that had run a red light. The driver of the car fled. The off-duty officer was in stable condition.

Police recovered the abandoned car and are investigating whether it was involved in the original shooting at the housing complex. No arrests have been made in the case, which is being handled by the department’s Shooting Investigation Group.

And more violence

Detectives are also searching for a woman believed to have shot at her friend’s boyfriend during a domestic incident in West Philadelphia. Responding to the report of a shooting near 55th Street and Girard Avenue just after 2:30 a.m., police were waved down by a 24-year-old man with a graze wound to his shoulder. The woman fled in a white Nissan sedan, police said.

And in separate stabbings Sunday morning in the Tioga and Kensington sections of the city, a 28-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man were injured. Police said both were in stable condition.

As Sunday wore on, just before 2:30 p.m., a 26-year-old man was shot multiple times on the 2400 block of North Reese Street, police said. He was rushed to Temple Hospital, but died within minutes, police said. No arrest had been made as of Sunday evening.

The holiday weekend mayhem comes as Philadelphia records fewer shootings and homicides than almost any other year in recent memory.

So far this year, 116 people have been killed in homicides, as compared to 133 this time last year, according to department data as of July 5. Through June, fewer than 500 people had been shot in the city — the lowest number in at least the last decade.

Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.