What started with an argument over a game of pool ended with a young woman being fatally shot in the head in the back of a Philadelphia bar on Tuesday night.
Jailene Holton, 21, had reluctantly dated friends for a reunion, according to a… Fox 29 news report. She was the designated driver for the group, who began their evening at a local Top Golf before heading to Philly Bar & Restaurant, where a sign above the door reads, “LIFE, LIBERTY, BEAR.” The Northeast neighborhood bar hosts a billiards league night on the only pool table on Tuesdays – which eventually started the deadly violence.
At one point in the evening, three customers arrived hoping to play the pool table, but according to the report, it turned out to be occupied. One of the men in the group became furious at not being able to play, leading to a bouncer kicking them all out of the bar. Just after 11:30 p.m., one of the men opened fire at the site from about 60 meters away before fleeing in a dark-colored pickup truck, police said.
Blood flows through the streets during another weekend of mass shootings
Of the 15 shots fired, 10 hit the building, but five hit the front windows of the bar. One of those bullets hit Jailene — who is believed to have been way back in the bar when she was hit. Philadelphia Police Superintendent Scott Small said officers and medics “found a 21-year-old woman lying on the floor in the bar with a gunshot wound to her head,” adding, “She did not respond.”
Doctors tried to save her life with emergency surgery, but she was pronounced dead in hospital at 4 a.m. the random shooting, according to the Fox 29 report.
Relatives later confirmed the victim’s identity as Jailene to the media.
“And the hardest part is that she never goes out,” her mother is said to have told Fox 29. Her uncle, James Holton, reprimanded progressive Philadelphia prosecutor Larry Krasner CBS3† “Krasner should let the police do their job,” Holton said. “Krasner, the mayor, whoever’s in charge. Let the police do their job. Stop bothering them. Stop petting these criminals and hold people accountable. How many children are there in the city? is dying† I mean, don’t you get tired of hearing it every day?”
Jailene’s death is just one of hundreds of people killed in Philadelphia so far this year. According to police dataas of Tuesday, there have been 254 homicides in Philly in 2022, which is somehow 6 percent lower than at the same time in 2021 — the year the City of Brotherly Love recorded 562 homicides, the worst number ever recorded in the city .
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