Shortly after 9 p.m. on Oct. 22, 2004, shots rang out along the 5700 block of Kingsessing Avenue, near Cecil Street.
For a minute or two, the neighborhood was a fire zone.
When the shooting stopped, a suspected drug dealer lay on the sidewalk, bleeding from gunshot wounds to the leg, hand and shoulder. He told police he had no idea who had shot him or why.
Later, federal prosecutors would allege that the shooters that night included Coles, Baukman, and several of their associates.
But at the time, no one knew who was behind the gunfire. To many, it was another flash point of violence typical of city neighborhoods where drug gangs operate.
Residents knew the drill.
One woman told police that when she heard the start of shooting, she instinctively dived onto her kitchen floor. A bullet ripped through her front door.
Another neighbor had a bullet hole in her porch window, and a third complained about bullet holes in the trunk and rear windows of his 1995 Cutlass Supreme that was parked on the street.
By the time police arrived, the shooters had disappeared.
On the street, investigators recovered 39 9mm shell casings, 15 .40-caliber shell casings, and one live 9mm round.
In the span of two or three minutes on a fall night in a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, 54 shots had been fired by men trying to gun down one another.
Police suspected a shoot-out between rival drug organizations. It would take an unexpected conversation overheard on a wiretap on Coles' phone before investigators could put it all together.
Investigators were focused on Ace Capone and Tim Gotti: suspected drug dealers.
Barry Michael Cooper, working on Streets Inc., was focused on Ace Capone and Tim Gotti: gritty record moguls.
But when executives at UPN saw a draft of his pilot, they decided to pass.
"They said it was too real," Cooper recalled.
Tomorrow
A brutal murder yields more clues.
