Man Caring for Sick Mother Shot While Leaving Her Home: Police

As many in the nation are pushing for tighter gun control, a man was reportedly shot and killed on Sunday night, just after taking care of his sick mother.

The Philadelphia Police Department confirmed the incident to local press outlets, including NBC Philadelphia. The victim, whose name has not been disclosed to the public, was leaving his mother's home along the 3300 block of North Smedley Street in the Tioga neighborhood of the city and was getting into his car before being confronted by the alleged shooter or shooters.

Officers arriving on the scene found the victim bleeding on the ground, having apparently been shot in the head. The door to his vehicle was open and his keys were lying next to him, according to CBS Philadelphia. The victim was unresponsive at the scene and was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, where he was ultimately pronounced dead a short time later, according to Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

"It's a tragic story," Small said, according to NBC. "Just left his mother's house—who he takes care of because she's sick—and when getting into his car he was shot and killed...It appears that the shooter or shooters walked right up to this victim and shot him."

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. As of Monday morning, according to NBC Philadelphia, no motive had been determined for the shooting and no suspects have been arrested. Investigators are currently looking for surveillance footage from the area around the victim's mother's home in hopes of gaining a better sense of the situation as it played out. Evidence has been recovered from the scene indicating that at least two shots were fired.

"We know at least two shots were fired from a large caliber semiautomatic weapon," Small added. "We found two spent shell casings, they were just a few feet away from where the victim was laying. That's an indication that the shooter or shooters were standing very close."

Newsweek reached out to the Philadelphia Police Department for comment.

As of Monday, there have been at least 227 homicide victims in Philadelphia this year, according to statistics released by the police department. This number is down around 6 percent from the same time in 2021, a year that ultimately became the deadliest one on record for homicides in the city. As of Friday, CBS Philadelphia reported that over 1,000 city residents had been shot in 2022.

This latest alleged shooting came only a few days after a 14-year-old boy was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the Summerdale neighborhood of Philadelphia. The boy, Robert Yocum III, was set to graduate from eighth grade on the same day.

"The violence is never going to end, it's going to constantly happen until all these guns get off the streets," the boy's father, Robert Yocum Jr. told CBS Philadelphia.

Not long before that, three people died and at least 11 others were injured in a mass shooting on Philadelphia's South Street, authorities said.

Earlier this year, police shot and killed a 12-year-old boy after he allegedly fired at officers.

And in May, a man was arrested after police found him decapitating his girlfriend with a machete in Delaware County, Philadelphia, according to local media reports.