Five people are dead and several others critically injured after four separate bar shootings over the Presidents Day weekend, Philadelphia police said.
The five fatalities mark the second-deadliest weekend already this year, following a seven-murder weekend in January. The city’s murder total is now at 42 — not including eight murders linked to abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell — compared to 36 this time last year.
Sherrief Watkins, 22, was gunned down outside Off the Clock Bar in Olney and died at Albert Einstein Medical Center on Sunday in the last murder of the weekend. The previous day, 52-year-old Cynthia Adams was found stabbed to death in a North Philadelphia house. Her boyfriend, Henry Slatter, 52, is charged with the murder.
Three other men between the ages of 20 and 31 were shot in separate disputes at bars, police said. One man was reported shot by a security guard in self-defense.
