Florida Man Visiting Philadelphia Killed in Drive-By Shooting

Zachary Stieber
By Zachary Stieber
September 3, 2018US News
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A Florida man visiting Pennsylvania over the weekend was shot dead.

Antonio Baggs, 37, was driving a vehicle near the intersection of Abbottsford Avenue and Green Street in the Germantown section of Philadelphia around 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3. Another vehicle pulled alongside him and at least 10 bullets were fired into his vehicle, police officers said.

Baggs’s aunt, Marcine Ashby, said he was in Philadelphia to visit her and he was mistaken by the shooter or shooters to be someone else.

“This is mistaken identity,” Ashby told WPVI. “He has no connection to the area other than family.”

“They shot the wrong guy this time. Believe me, they shot the wrong guy,” Ashby said.

Surprise Visit

Ashby said that Baggs, his fiancée, his son, and his daughter had traveled from Pompano Beach to visit Ashby and then to the Delaware home of Baggs’ 86-year-old grandmother.

The visit was a surprise.

“My daughter across the street called me and said Tony’s in town and he’s trying to get in. So when I was coming downstairs I just heard boom, boom, boom. Loud gunshots. I went to the door but I didn’t see him,” Ashby recalled to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“By this time cops were everywhere and we knew somebody got shot. Then my son-in-law came out of the house and said, ‘Mom, that was Tony who got shot, that was Tony.’ And I just snapped.”

Ashby said her nephew worked in a dairy in Florida and was planning to get married in three months.

Ashby said the family has not told her mother because she is frail and the news “could kill her.”

Search for Motive

Of the 10-plus bullets fired into the vehicle, five hit Baggs in the chest, reported Fox 29.

He was rushed to the Einstein Medical Center but was soon pronounced dead. The other three people inside the car were not hit.

Officers told the Inquirer that the investigation into the death includes a search for the motive.

Homicide Capt. John Ryan said on Sunday that the police still haven’t pinpointed a motive and said Ashby’s assertation of a mistaken identity could very well be true.

“It could very well be a case of mistaken identity. That is the most likely thing now,” Ryan said. “We’ll have to look into his background more, but this man had just driven up from Florida and had only been in the city a few hours. He hadn’t been in the city long at all.”

Baggs had made a few stops in Philadelphia, including at a restaurant, but “there had been no altercation with anyone,” Ryan added.

“And this was not a road rage kind of thing. We literally have no idea what prompted this.”

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