Few details were available in the Kingsessing shooting other than the victim was found near 54th Street and Willows Avenue. He had been shot in the chest.
In Kensington, police said gunfire erupted at Somerset and Emerald Streets about 5:10 p.m., leaving a man and woman dead and another woman in critical condition.
Police said Raheem Haines, 20, was declared dead at the scene. Two sisters were taken to Temple University Hospital, where one, Diana Patrick, 30, was pronounced dead. The surviving sister's name was not released because she is a witness. She was in critical condition.
Initial reports indicated that police were looking for two men who drove off in a vehicle. They were later arrested away from the scene, and were being interviewed late last night at Police Headquarters. A homicide investigator said they would likely be charged overnight.
At the scene, a detective said the shootings apparently resulted from an argument, but it was unclear over what.
The slayings occurred in a neighborhood of tattered rowhouses that one resident described as "a melting pot - black, white, Hispanic, all kinds." Alleys are littered with tires. Vacant lots sprout waist-high weeds. The yards of supply houses and body shops are protected by chain-link fences topped with concertina wire.
Hours after the shooting, detectives were still working the neighborhood, and about a dozen markers near Haines' body indicated where the spent cartridges had fallen during the fusillade.
Dozens of neighbors gathered behind the yellow crime-scene tape that cordoned off the intersection.
"Didn't see nuthin'," one middle-aged man said gruffly in reply to a reporter's question. "You know how it goes down here."
