On the part of the Associated Press:
Officers fanned out around the northeast Philadelphia store in search of the alleged gunman, identified by police as Daryl Anthony Birch, 30. A telephone listing for Birch could not immediately be located by The Associated Press.
So the guy just shot a few people, is on the lam, and their first reaction was to try to track him down to get a statement? That would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
I just saw the same last paragraph — a telephone listing could not be located — on another AP story.
Speaking as an ex-reporter, I suspect that the original reporter(s) looked for a number in order to get an interview with a parent (“My Daryl’s a *good* boy!”) or anyone who made add information about the suspected shooter.
It’s a throwaway line, meaning just “We tried.”