Eight students from a Philadelphia high school were shot while waiting for a city bus after school. The shooters came out of a car and started shooting at them. This is the fourth shooting on the transit system in the past four days.
The last three shootings each resulted in someone being killed. At the bus stop, a 16-year-old student was seriously injured and got shot nine times, as mentioned by the city’s police commissioner, Kevin Bethel, during a news conference. The others were feeling okay.
Bethel said that the high school students at Northeast High School, who were 15 to 17 years old, were waiting for the bus at about 3 in the afternoon. Three people got out of the car and shot more than 30 times. The car was waiting at the scene.
The police got many calls about a lot of shooting on the highway near Dunkin’ Donuts in northeast Philadelphia.
The injured teenagers were brought to Einstein Medical Center and Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, as told by John Golden, who speaks for SEPTA. Two buses, a Route 18 bus and a Route 67 bus, were shot at, but no one on the bus got hurt.
Northeast High School is the biggest public high school in the city. It has over 3,000 students and is over a mile away from where the shooting happened.
Monique Braxton, who is in charge of talking to the public for the Philadelphia school district, said there was a shooting near Crossan Elementary. The school was letting students go home when it happened, but then they brought them back inside and made sure the school was secure. The police said everything was okay later.
Mayor Cherelle Parker, who was at the location with the city’s police commissioner, prosecutor, and school superintendent, said she wants everyone to know that they will do whatever it takes within the law to keep the people of the city safe and healthy.
Tony Watlington Sr. is the school principal. Officials are really sad and mad that innocent kids walking home from school were hurt by guns. They agree with the mayor that it’s enough and it needs to stop.
The area where the shooting happened was closed off with yellow police tape. There were lots of little flags on the wet ground marking evidence.
Jessica Healy, who lives in the neighborhood with her two-year-old daughter, said that the area has become more dangerous lately. She also mentioned that some of her neighbors are already planning to move because of things that have happened in the past.
“I feel really upset and worried that I don’t want to walk my daughter outside,” Healy said.
“I don’t want to stay here. ” I want to go somewhere else. “But my boyfriend has a good job here, so that’s why we’re staying,” she said.
Another person who has lived here for a long time, Brenda Keith, said she doesn’t do anything special to stay safe, except for being careful and paying attention to what’s around her in case she needs to leave quickly to avoid trouble. She knows some people might feel scared in the city or worry about taking SEPTA, but she won’t let shootings make her stop living her life.
“But other cities are going through this too. I’ve been here for a long time and things have gotten worse, but that’s just how life is,” Keith said.
On Wednesday, there was another shooting. In the past three days, there were also shootings where someone was killed while getting on, off, or riding a SEPTA bus.
The shooting happened on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m there was an argument, and then a fight started. One person got out of the car, then shot and hit a man with a 9 mm gun. He died soon after at a hospital.
The person who shot the gun, and was not allowed to wear a certain type of mask on the transit system, ran away. Officials were looking into why it happened, and there were no other people hurt.
Charles Lawson, who is in charge of SEPTA’s transit police, said that someone shot at the person while the driver was right behind them.
On Monday, a 17-year-old student died and four other people were hurt when someone started shooting at a bus stop. Two women were on a bus and they were hurt.
On Sunday, at about 11:30 p. m, a 27-year-old man was killed by another person soon after they both got off a bus. Witnesses saw the two people fighting, but the reason is still being looked into by the police.
No one has been arrested for any of the shootings, according to Frank Vanore, deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia police department, speaking on Wednesday.
There is less serious crime on the transportation system, but there is a new problem of people carrying illegal weapons and shooting others during arguments. He promised that officials will work hard and without any apologies to stop crime and use all the possible legal ways to catch people with illegal guns.
“We are going to focus on people who are hiding their identity. ” We will focus on catching people who don’t pay for their train or bus tickets. “We will focus on stopping people from using drugs in public,” Lawson said. “We will focus on enforcing all the laws for criminals. ”
Officials are going to keep a closer eye on security cameras and finding ways for employees to report problems without anyone knowing.
