"To be perfectly honest, we don't have a clue," said a Pagan leader who asked not to be identified, outside Mondevergine's South Philadelphia home on 12th Street near Bigler. "But we will find out and do what is necessary. They hurt a family member. He's family."
A male about 20 in tan shorts and a white T-shirt was seen running down 12th Street outside Mondevergine's home, where he lives with his mother and two of his three daughters. The man fled into an alley to Camac Street.
"We don't sneak up and hide and shoot in front of your mother's house. That's the coward's way," the biker leader added. "Pagans will come up in front of you and shoot you in the face."
If the assassination attempt had been the work of the mob, retaliation will be swift and harsh, predicted Capt. James Murphy, of the organized crime unit.
"They shoot the fellow six times. By all appearances this could be a mob hit," said Murphy. "In the past, we've found quite often there is retaliation."
"One of the things about Steve Mondevergine, he's a very aggressive individual," said Murphy. "Over the years, he's made a lot of enemies. It may be an enemy who felt it was time to settle the score."
Police and Pagans guarded Mondevergine's hospital room. South Detectives have been unable to interview him.
Last year, a drug dealer from the 10th and Oregon streets gang who allegedly refused to pay the mob's street tax and who was rude to a woman friend of Gorilla's, was roughed up pretty badly by the Pagans. The dealer threatened to retaliate.
Pagans last night dismissed that man as a suspect, saying "he's so full of fear" of Gorilla.
"He's one man. We are many. For him to think he could do it and get away with it. . ." said the Pagan leader.
"But this is a perfect time if somebody wanted to blame this faction or that faction" to throw suspicion off themselves, he added.
