Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dion Waiters was likely thinking about tonight’s game against the L.A. Clippers when he got the call no one ever wants to get. His younger brother, Demetrious Pinckney, had been shot and killed Tuesday night in Philadelphia on a bloody day that left six dead.
The bloodshed that stretched across the city began Tuesday afternoon, when a man attacked three strangers with a knife in Southwest Philadelphia, killing one of them. Five men were then shot to death Tuesday night across Philadelphia, in what Police Commissioner Richard Ross called one of the city’s most violent nights in recent memory.
A suspect was in custody in the fatal stabbing, which police called a random, unprovoked attack, while investigators were still looking for the gunmen in the deadly shootings. Most of those killings appeared to stem from arguments that people chose to settle with guns, the commissioner said.
Authorities on Wednesday identified some of the victims, including Demetrious Pinckney, 21, brother of Dion Waiters, a Philadelphia native and Oklahoma City Thunder guard, according to sources close to NBA player.
Pinckney, of North Philadelphia, was shot in the head on the 2300 block of Morris Street in South Philadelphia about 7:30 p.m. after some type of argument and dirt bike chase, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 8:01 p.m.
Waiters posted on his Instagram account about the death Tuesday night, showing a picture apparently of Pinckney with a dirt bike and writing that the news “crushed my heart.”
Waiters will not play in Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers and was traveling to Philadelphia to be with his family.
“We were saddened to hear the news of the passing of Dion’s brother, and he has our full support,” Sam Presti, the team’s executive vice president and general manager, said in a statement. “Dion and his family are in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”
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