A dozen South Philly gang members will be charged for shooting 26 people, DAO announces in major takedown

Prosecutors have announced charges against a dozen members of three South Philadelphia gangs who they say were responsible for shooting at least 26 people between 2022 and 2023 — including one teen who they believe shot 16 people.

The indictment, announced Friday by the Gun Violence Task Force in the District Attorney’s Office, is one of the unit’s largest investigations and takedowns since it was formed nearly 20 years ago, said Assistant District Attorney Bill Fritze, who supervises the team of prosecutors and investigators.

The case primarily centers on three crews of young men who lived east of Broad Street. On one side are the “Senders,” from Fifth and Christian Streets, and their allied clique, the “Close Range Gang.” Their enemies were members of the “Klapperz,” from Seventh and Ritner Streets.

The groups began shooting at one another in 2021, Fritze said, for reasons that are not completely clear. Then, after a 16-year-old affiliate of the Senders was shot and killed in January 2022, Fritze said, officials saw an explosion in retaliatory violence.

The death of that teen, Mehki Ingram, fueled what would become a yearslong war in which more than two dozen people would be shot in multiple Philadelphia neighborhoods, said Katherine Reamy and Adam Farraye, the prosecutors who led the investigation.

They said other shootings potentially linked to the conflict remain under investigation — and the feud continues.

At the center of the violence, Reamy said, was Eli Simmons, a 19-year-old member of the Senders known as “A3,” who has been charged with committing nine shootings with a total of 16 victims.

Simmons would have been 16 when Reamy said he engaged in the carjackings and shootings that began as payback for Ingram’s death before spiraling into a larger quest for notoriety.

Reamy said prosecutors have charged Tahir Row, and have a warrant out for the arrest of Kwaudia Carter-Lewis, for their roles in killing Ingram on the 800 block of June Street on Jan. 22, 2022.

Row and Carter-Lewis, she said, are connected to the Klapperz — a group that has become known for its affiliation to a supergroup gang primarily based in West Philadelphia known as “CCK,” in which the “K” stands for Klapperz.

And Ingram’s slaying, she said, was in retaliation for a shooting a year earlier, when, on April 15, 2021, two young men were shot on the 2000 block of South Seventh Street. Carl Jarrett, 21, has been charged with that crime, she said.

Among the 10 members of the Senders who were charged are at least two local rappers. Isaiah Brown, known as “Kapgeez,” has been charged with shooting two people on the 700 block of Jackson Street on April 5, 2023.

And Quadir Spady, or “Splashem,” is accused of shooting a 30-year-old in the back on the 500 block of North 55th Street on Jan. 30, 2023.

Investigators, including officers and detectives from Philadelphia police and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, inspected ballistic evidence, cell phone records, social media messages, and public postings on Instagram to link the crimes together, they said.

Social media has become a main driver of gun violence in the city in the last few years, officials said, and a chief tool in solving the crimes.

“If it’s public, we’re looking at it,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said of the gang’s online presence. “And if it’s not, we’re doing everything we can to get the right to look at it.”

Farraye said the Senders had a slogan they boasted about online and in songs: “If you want to join the Senders, get a body. Then you gang with us.”

Detective Kelley Gallagher said the crews and the crimes they carried out are an example of how gun violence has become like something of a game to some young people in the city. Often, she said, they talk about shootings like the sport of basketball.

“Every shooting victim is a point,” she said.

The South Philadelphia case brought together 17 incidents in all, officials said: 14 shootings and three carjackings. After stealing a car at gunpoint, Reamy said, the teens would use the vehicle to commit a shooting.

That’s what happened on Jan. 28, 2022, when officials say Simmons carjacked a Honda Accord on the 1400 block of South Sixth Street. A few hours later, Reamy said, Simmons and Jarrett drove that Honda to the 700 block of Ritner Street and shot three men, ages 26 and 28, in the legs.

Investigators also linked the Close Range Gang, a smaller, lesser-known crew aligned with the Senders, to the shooting of seven people in Strawberry Mansion on Feb. 23, 2023.

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In that incident, officials said Elante Outerbridge and two others hopped out of a car and fired more than two dozen shots at a group of teens on the 3100 block of West Norris Street. Five young men, ages 15 to 17, were wounded.

A 31-year-old mother was pushing her children in a stroller nearby when the gunfire erupted. Shaina Moore was struck twice in the leg, and her 2-year-old daughter, Suhara, was also shot in the thigh. The two survived, but the family was traumatized.

District Attorney Larry Krasner said 16-year-old Jayvonne Solomon, accused of shooting two people on the 700 block of Jackson Street on April 5, 2023, also remains at large.

“Turn yourself in,” Krasner said. “One more stupid decision, and his life could be over.”

Then he spoke to the groups involved in the violence.

“Anyone who is thinking it’s fun to be involved in groups playing gangster ... to do music about shootings you actually did,” he said, “... will understand that it will put you in jail for a very long time.”