Unspoken grief

A few feet from the stoop of Malik Upchurch’s house on the 1300 block of South 27th Street stands one of his school friends.

At the peak of the hot, humid afternoon, the moisture on the 8-year-old boy’s face can be mistaken for sweat. But a closer look, and it’s obvious that tears are streaming down his face.

"What’s wrong, sweetie?" a stranger asks the sobbing child. "Did you know Malik?"

The child nods, and begins to wipe away pools of tears with his blue T-shirt. Overcome by sorrow, he buries his head inside his shirt collar and continues to cry for the friend he will never see again.

Nearly 24 hours after Upchurch, 15, was gunned down last Thursday afternoon on the 2800 block of Wharton Street, friends, family and neighbors gathered on the boy’s blockto mourn him.

An eighth-grader at Alcorn Elementary/Middle School at 32nd and Dickinson streets, Upchurch was an innocent victim caught in a neighborhood feud, police believe.

Yesterday morning, police arrested a 17-year-old and charged him with the slaying. Detectives have issued an arrest warrant for a second teen suspect.

Most of the victim’s family members were too overcome to talk about the tragedy. Like some other relatives, his brother Tyree, 17, wore an airbrushed white T-shirt featuring Malik’s photo.

The shirt made a statement that Tyree, for the time being, could not.

"I can’t," he uttered, barely above a whisper, when asked to discuss his brother.

The 17-year-old is one of five brothers and four sisters Upchurch leaves behind.

The mood was solemn inside the home of the victim’s grandmother on the block. Surrounded by family and neighbors, neither she nor her daughter — Malik’s mother — wanted to be interviewed.

But across the street, two of the victim’s great-aunts and a close friend of the family sat in lawn chairs and recalled an amiable, generous teenager.

"You would have liked Malik. He always had a smile on his face. He was just a very nice person. He would do anything for you," said the friend, who declined to give her name.

The woman, who was raised in Grays Ferry, believes action must be taken to combat the violence that claims so many young lives.

Instead of closing recreation centers, the city should be opening more to keep youths — like whoever shot Upchurch — off the street, she contended.

One of the victim’s great-aunts called the boy "outstanding."

"He was nice. He would do anything for anybody," said the woman, who lives on the 2700 block of Manton Street.

"We want them to catch the people who did it so they don’t take nobody else’s life — another child," the other great-aunt, a resident of Sharon Hill, said Friday before any arrests had been made.

Both relatives describe Upchurch as a "playful, happy-go-lucky child" who enjoyed outdoor activity. Basketball and riding his bike around the neighborhood were among his favorite pastimes.

Sadly, Upchurch was doing one of the things he loved most when he was shot.

The teen was riding his bike on the 2800 block of Wharton around 3:30 p.m. last Thursday when he was ambushed by bullets, said Lt. Joe Maum of the Homicide Division.

Seventeenth District police found Upchurch on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds to his chest, Maum added.

According to at least one police report, two teens rode off on bikes and also stole the victim’s ride after the slaying, but Maum said he could not confirm that.

Witnesses told police the victim staggered halfway down 28th Street before collapsing in a pool of his own blood. A memorial with stuffed animals marks the spot.

A medic unit took Upchurch to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he died at 3:50 p.m.

Homicide investigators recovered ballistics evidence at the scene, but Maum would not elaborate.

The night of the shooting, homicide detectives brought in two men for questioning, Maum said.

One of them, Rodney Johnson, 19, of the 1200 block of South 27th Street, was arrested for possession of a firearm, Maum said.

"We’re thinking he was going to avenge the shooting," the lieutenant said of the suspect.

Authorities are operating on the theory that the teen was targeted to send a message — a sacrifice in a twisted act of retaliation.

"At this particular point, we believe the fellows hanging around 31st Street and the fellows hanging around 27th Street are involved in some type of dispute," Maum said.

At least three investigators told the Review that they believed Upchurch — from South 27th Street — was killed as payback for a June 28 triple shooting that wounded a trio of South 31st Street residents.

The three were shot in the back while they sat inside a parked car on the 2800 block of Dickinson Street. The driver of the targeted vehicle parked on the block minutes after 2 a.m. and then got out while the three remained inside, said Sgt. Steve Biello of South Detectives. A short time later, two males converged on the either side of the car and fired several shots inside, the sergeant said. The victims drove themselves to an area hospital; the driver did not return to the car.

In the aftermath of Upchurch’s slaying, detectives Bob Lis and Bob Conn of South Detective Division’s Special Investigations Unit went back to the neighborhood Friday afternoon to talk to the driver of that car.

The driver was not arrested in connection with either Upchurch’s slaying or the triple shooting.

Despite the crime plaguing the neighborhood, detectives are clear on Upchurch’s status as an innocent victim.

"He was not involved in anything," Lis said. "I never heard his name in conjunction with anything out there. He was involved in basketball and helping kids in the community."

"Everything we’re hearing, he was a good kid," another police officer said of Upchurch. "He just happened to be from the wrong neighborhood."

In another show of police presence, Narcotics Bureau Inspector Joe Sullivan and another officer also paid a visit to Upchurch’s area Friday afternoon.

"The Narcotics Bureau is very concerned about this," the inspector said. "All the resources of the department are going to be contributed to the 17th District to make sure there’s no further violence."