UPDATE: A commenter helped clarify this story. A jury found Thomas not guilty of the murder charge on Sept. 13, which explains why he was free. We should have done a little more homework before we speculated on that.

Police say the man fatally shot near 49th and Springfield early Saturday morning was 26-year-old Maki Thomas, who was arrested last year in connection with a 2001 murder.

Thomas, who was connected with home addresses in the Overbrook section and the 4100 block of Cambridge St., reportedly called police on a cell phone at about 1:10 a.m. after he had been shot in the head and neck. Police arrived to find Thomas unconscious at the wheel of a Nissan Maxima, which was still running. He was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m.

Thomas was arrested in April 2010 in connection with the March 2001 murder of Quentin Armstrong in front of a deli at 52nd and Warrington. Police had been looking for Thomas for years and almost had him in 2009 when he used his real name to check into a Haverford medical facility to reportedly get a gunshot wound treated. He fled before police arrived.

Police caught Thomas when he was detained at an Atlantic City casino for trying to pass counterfeit bills.

A 21-year-old man was in stable condition this morning after he was shot on the steps of a home near 50th and Florence last night.

The unidentified man told police he was standing in a doorway at 900 S. 50th Street at about 11 p.m. when two or three young men approached him on bicycles. One man pulled out a shot gun and fired once, striking the man on the porch once in the left arm. Police found the victim in the kitchen of the home running water over the wound.

Police said the alleged assailants fled west on Springfield Avenue on bicycles.

The victim described the attackers as black males wearing black clothing.

Six people were shot during halftime of a basketball league playoff game last night at the courts near the Kingesessing Recreation Center near 49th and Kingsessing at about 8:50 p.m.last night.

Police said some 500 people crowded around the courts during the game, including two police officers.

“All of a sudden they just heard gun shots,” said police spokesperson Christine O’Brien.

The game was part of the city-run Eggy Taylor and Pick Brown League.

Four men ranging in ages from 18-23 and a 20-year-old woman were shot in the legs, police said. One 19-year-old man was shot in the stomach. None of the injuries were life threatening, police said. A recreation official told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the victims were innocent bystanders.

The shooter was described as a black male, 22-24 years old with a dark complexion. He is about 5 feet, nine inches tall and was wearing a red and black baseball cap, a white t-shirt and black jeans.

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Police are reporting that an arrest has been made in the late-morning murder of 39-year-old Yvette Saunders, a mother of six who was shot in the chest outside her home near 52nd and Kingsessing on the day before Mother’s Day.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a short, heart-wrenching story about the shooting. The Inquirer‘s Mike Newall reports that Saunders was shot outside her home on the 5200 block of Reinhard Street trying to protect her 18-year-old son, the intended target of the alleged gunman.

Newall reports that Isaac Porterfield, 22, of the 500 block of North Vodges Street, has been charged in the killing. Police say Porterfield turned himself in.

The shooting was a result of a dispute between Porterfield and Saunders’ son, who accused a friend of Porterfield’s of beating up his girlfriend.

Saunders’ son was not hit in the shooting.

Police are searching for three men involved in a shooting at 48th and Kingsessing last night that left two victims in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds.

Police say the shooting took place after a red coupe-style vehicle – possibly a Mustang or Toyota – approached two men standing on the northwest corner of 48th and Kingsessing at about 10:45 p.m. The driver exited the car and began arguing with the two men. Two passengers then emerged from the vehicle and opened fire, according to police.

One victim, a 25-year-old male, was shot multiple times in the lower back and was listed in critical condition at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP). A second victim, an unidentified male, was shot three times in the lower abdomen and once in the leg. He is also listed in critical condition at HUP.

Police spokeswoman Christine O’Brien said the driver was a black male, mid 30s to early 40s, approximately 6-foot-1 and wearing a white t-shirt with a yellow triangle on the upper left. The other two suspects were described as black males, mid 20s, wearing black t-shirts with white t-shirts underneath and dark pants.

The vehicle fled westbound on Kingsessing following the shooting.

 

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Police are still searching for the person who shot a 25-year-old man  near the corner of 51st and Irving (see map below) Monday night. Police were called to the scene at about 9 p.m. to find Leon McMillan, 27, shot twice in the chest. He later died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. McMillan lived a block away onn the 5100 block of Locust

The fatal shooting is the second in two days in West Philadelphia. Eighteen-year-old Jarell Seay was shot on the front porch of his home on the 1300 block of N. 55th Street on Sunday. No arrests have been made in the shooting. The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story yesterday about Seay’s parents’ struggle with their son’s death.

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