Teenager killed, 4 injured in shooting after high school football scrimmage

Lucas2022-09-28

PHILADELPHIA — A 14-year-old was killed and four other students injured in a shooting near a high school sports field in northwest Philadelphia after a football scrimmage, authorities said.

Police say players were leaving the field behind Roxborough High School after a melee involving three schools when at least two people opened fire shortly after 4.30pm on Tuesday before fleeing on foot.

Police say a 14-year-old boy was pronounced dead shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Einstein Medical Center after being shot in the chest. A 17-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the arm and leg and a 14-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the thigh were listed in stable condition. No information was immediately available about a fourth student being taken to hospital; another student grazed by a bullet was treated on the spot.

Assistant Police Commissioner John Stanford told reporters the players were walking away from a melee involving Roxborough High School, Northeast High School and Boys Latin Charter School that had just ended when the gunfire began.

He said the boys had been targeted while doing ‘one of the things we encourage our children to do’, and one family’s son is ‘not coming home today’.

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No arrests were immediately reported. Stanford said police will pull footage from several surveillance cameras in the area. He said investigators will also be looking at social media and gathering information to see if the shooting could have stemmed from something that happened earlier in the day.

School officials said they would have a trauma support team to help students and staff.

« Schools used to be a safe place… and to see that now our young people can’t even get into a scrimmage match and get shot at – that’s totally unacceptable, » said Kevin Bethel, school safety officer for the Philadelphia school district.

« It was a cowardly act today – going out and ambushing people coming out of the ballpark. Does that make you hard? I don’t think so, » he said.

District Attorney Larry Krasner said he was « absolutely outraged. »

« I’m shocked – frankly, I’m a little shaken up, » Krasner said. « It’s horrible, what’s going on here. I obviously feel for all the families, all the students – I can’t even look at the headmistress, imagine what she’s going through. … Schools are supposed to be the answer. We let’s keep the kids in school so they don’t get involved in the shooting.

The shooting happened hours after Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order banning firearms and lethal weapons from indoor and outdoor recreation spaces in the city, including parks, basketball courts and swimming pools. .

The ordinance is the latest attempt by city officials to regulate firearms within city limits, which is made difficult by Pennsylvania’s preemptive law that prohibits municipalities from adopting or enforcing their own stricter gun regulations.

torontosun

Lucas2022-09-28