PHILADELPHIA — A defiant Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney appeared publicly Tuesday for the first time since the deadly South Street mass shooting, meeting with frustrated business owners and saying the city is “doing everything it can” to fight ongoing gun violence.
But the mayor, who was in Reno when the shooting took place late Saturday and returned Monday, stopped short of saying the city’s response to violence would change because of the gunfire that left three people dead and 11 others wounded.
Instead, he continued to blame the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature, which enacted a law in 1994 preventing the city from passing its own gun regulations. Kenney said Tuesday that, had the shooters on South Street been unarmed, the brawl and ensuing melee could have been “a fistfight.”
