Protest marches and expressions of moral outrage had proven ineffective at curbing the culture of violence, he added.
"We might just be past the tipping point; shootings have become so normative that it becomes part of the neighborhood culture," he said. "I don't know how you fix that with a protest march."
Though the city's murder total is growing at a pace to surpass last year's total of 406 homicides, the city is still behind the city's worst year for homicides, 1990, when 500 were recorded.
While the total number of murders is still far shy of the record, the city's murder rate is getting perilously close to the high point. Philadelphia had a murder rate of 27.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2006, compared with 31.5 in 1990. The rate was 18.9 per 100,000 in 2002 when 288 murders were recorded.
Yesterday's slayings created more work for homicide detectives, who had a busy night with two murders on Wednesday.
At 11:16 p.m. Wednesday, police found a man shot in the chest, arm and groin in the 400 block of North Sickels Street. He was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and remained unidentified.
A few hours earlier, police said Theophilius Mason, 46, was gunned down near his home in the 200 block of North Paxon Street. Shot in the chest, back and arm, Mason was pronounced dead at 5:36 p.m. at the same hospital.
To read previous Inquirer coverage of violence in Philadelphia, go to
