Authorities announced in a press conference that at least eight high school kids, ages 15 to 17, had been shot on Wednesday afternoon at a Northeast Philadelphia transit bus stop.
According to Philadelphia police, seven of the injured pupils are in stable condition, while the 16-year-old who was shot nine times is in serious condition.
Both Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and Mayor Cherelle Parker assured reporters under a downpour that additional law enforcement resources would be deployed to combat this kind of gun crime.
“It is hard to sit here and see in three days … 11 juveniles shot who were going and coming to school,” Bethel stated. “The cowardly acts that we’ve seen over the last three days are unacceptable.”
Authorities reported that on Wednesday, shortly before 3 p.m. ET, kids from Northeast High School were waiting at a bus stop at the intersection of Rising Sun Avenue and Cottman Avenue.
According to the police commissioner, three persons exited a waiting automobile around the corner, approached the teenagers who were boarding a bus, and fired at least thirty times.
Eight people were shot; two were fifteen years old, five were sixteen, and one was seventeen, according to a press release from Philadelphia police. Among the dead was one girl.
According to the authorities, among the wounds were to the upper body, back, legs, and arms.
In a post on X, police made available CCTV footage showing three suspects exiting the vehicle, chasing after the pupils (some of whom were wearing backpacks), and then quickly returning to the moving vehicle in less than ten seconds.
Zoomed-in stills of all three suspects in the police film are put together, revealing that they are all thin-built men. Based on the description of each attacker’s outfit in the video captions, it appears that each suspect was wearing a mask. The driver’s description is absent.
The vehicle is a 2019 Hyundai Sonata, and the license plate is unreadable. The grille is devoid of the manufacturer’s insignia.
No one has been arrested by the authorities.
A representative for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority stated that gunshots had struck two of their buses. On the busses, nobody was hurt.
Chief says police will increase resources
The mayor gave citizens the assurance that every effort will be made by city officials to guarantee public safety.
“And we don’t apologize for using every legal and constitutional tool in our tool belt in order to get that done,” Parker continued.
In a shooting that police described as “targeted,” two women on a bus were struck by bullets on Monday, leaving one youngster dead and two other minors injured.
According to Bethel, there may be a connection between the gunshots on Wednesday and the shooting on Monday.
“The downstream impacts if we do not address gun violence and we do not address guns is what we see today,” Bethel stated. “As a result of what we’ve seen over the past three days we are going to be ramping up our resources significantly.”
Philadelphia police and transit police are collaborating in the investigation.
According to police records, Philadelphia’s homicide rate is down 30% so far this year compared to 2023 and much lower this year compared to the epidemic years’ peak.
However, the events in the last three days have brought to light worries about the security of students and public transportation.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 71 mass shootings reported in the US in the first 66 days of this year, including the massacre in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
