Philadelphia shooting : Possible motive emerges as suspect’s disturbing posts before attack revealed

Marie Merritt called her 22-year-old son, Lashyd Merritt who died in a mass shooting on Monday “so young and bright”.

“All the stuff that goes on in Philadelphia. He wasn’t a part of that. The violence, he wasn’t part of that,” Ms Merritt told local news outlet 6ABC.

Ms Merritt said her son was taking a snack break from work when the gunfire erupted. Lashyd, who works from home, would go out to the corner store to grab a snack, then return.

Lashyd was the youngest of five siblings.

“I don’t understand why people just - whatever anger they have within themselves - I don’t understand why someone in the neighborhood would have that type of stuff, like guns - I don’t understand that. And you’re just taking good people away,” Ms Merritt said.

The suspected shooter accused of killing five people and injuring several more during a mass shooting on Monday is awaiting arraignment set for Wednesday, according to police.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office identified the suspected shooter as 40-year-old Kimbrady Carriker, according to CNN.

Carriker is believed to have carried out the shooting with a “ghost gun” that “may have been obtained illegally,” district attorney Larry Krasner told CNN.

Carriker also had a gun conviction back in 2003.

“Yet here we are looking at, you know, five people dead as a result of a mass shooting rampage, where [Carriker] was well-armed and had another firearm back at [their] residence,” Mr Krasner added.

The suspected shooter in the Philadelphia mass shooting was charged with five counts of murder among other charges during a preliminary arraignment on Wednesday.

The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Kimbrady Carriker, was charged with 11 total charges including attempted murder, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault and carrying a firearm without a license.

The suspected shooter is accused of carrying out the shooting by “aimlessly” firing in a neighbourhood in Philadelphia. Five people, including a 15-year-old, were killed and two children were injured.

Carriker is being held without bail for the murders.

The masked and heavily-armed suspect accused of killing five people in a mass shooting in the Kingsessing neighborhood of Philadelphia has been identified as a 40-year-old with a history of gun offences.

Rachel Sharp and Graeme Massie report:

Lashyd Merritt, 22, had just stepped out of his house to go to the local store for food when he was gunned down by the suspect on Monday night.

“He was just going to the store to get his dinner for the night,” Merritt’s cousin Nikki Merritt told NBC News, saying that he was fatally shot just steps from his door.

“He lived three or four doors down from where he was found. He grew up here.”

Merritt grew up in the neighbourhood as the youngest of five children, attending West Philadelphia’s Overbrook High School before starting work at the IRS as a service representative.

A prayer vigil for the victims of the mass shooting that occurred on Monday will be held for the city of Philadelphia on Wednesday, July 5th at 7pm EDT.

“For the victims and families in southwest Philadelphia,” the flyer from Salt and Light in Philadelphia read.

The event is open to the public.

Ralph Moralis, 59, was supposed to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding just days after he was killed in Monday’s mass shooting.

Moralis’ former partner Tamika Veney described the 59-year-old as a family man who was looking forward to his eldest daughter’s wedding this weekend and was going to walk her down the aisle at the nuptials.

Instead, his family has now been left to plan his funeral.

“He did well by his family. He was a regular dude, a good person. He’s really going to be missed,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Over the course of the long holiday weekend from Friday evening through to Wednesday morning, the US endured at least 16 mass shootings

Rachel Sharp reports: