PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Eight teenagers were injured Wednesday afternoon in a shooting involving a Philadelphia city bus, authorities said, the fourth shooting on the transit system in as many days.
Just before 3 p.m., numerous 911 calls were received about a “mass shooting on the highway near Dunkin Donuts,” in northeast Philadelphia, according to police spokesperson Tanya Little. Upon arrival, police found several injured people with gunshot wounds.
“Students from Northeast High School were waiting for a bus, and when the bus pulled up at about 3 p.m., three people from a car opened fire and discharged more than 30 times,” said Kevin Bethel, the city’s police commissioner, at a news conference. “Eight students were shot, ranging in age from 15 to 17 years of age. One is in critical condition.”
Those injured were taken to Einstein Medical Center and Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, according to John Golden, a spokesperson for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA. Two buses — a Route 18 bus and a Route 67 bus — were hit by gunfire, but there were no reports of injuries to passengers of the driver.
Hospital nursing supervisors either declined to comment on the conditions of the patients they received, or did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Monique Braxton, deputy chief of communications for the Philadelphia school district, said the shooting occurred near Crossan Elementary. Northeast High School is more than a mile from where the shooting took place and the largest public high school in the city, with more than 3,000 students.
The elementary school was dismissing students at the time but pulled them back inside and locked down, she added. It was later given the all-clear from police.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, standing at the scene with the city police commissioner and prosecutor and the school superintendent, said she wanted people in the city to know that “we will not be held hostage, that we will use every legal tool in the toolbox to ensure the public health and safety of the people of our city.”
Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. said officials were “absolutely heartbroken and angry that innocent children walking home from school would be impacted by gun violence, and we agree with the mayor: Enough is enough.”
Wednesday’s shooting followed shootings the previous three days in which someone was killed while riding, entering or leaving a SEPTA bus.
Tuesday’s shooting occurred around 6:35 p.m., when police said a verbal argument and then a physical fight began. One of the two passengers exited, turned and fired two shots from a 9 mm handgun, hitting a man later identified as 37-year-old Carmelo Drayton. He died shortly afterward at a hospital.
The shooter, who officials said was wearing one of the kinds of masks not allowed on the transit system, fled. Authorities were investigating possible motive, and no other injuries were reported.
SEPTA’s chief of transit police, Charles Lawson, said the shots were fired at the victim while the driver was “immediately behind.”
On Monday, a 17-year-old student was killed and four other people were wounded when gunfire erupted at a bus stop. The victims included two women who were riding on a bus.
And on Sunday, around 11:30 p.m., a 27-year-old man was killed by another passenger moments after they both got off a bus. Witnesses said the two had argued, but a motive remains under investigation.
No arrests have been made in any of the shootings, Frank Vanore, deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia police department, said Wednesday.
While serious crime overall is down along the transportation system, Lawson said, a pattern that has emerged over the past year and a half is people carrying weapons, usually illegally, getting into an argument and then opening fire. As a result, he vowed that officials would enforce crime aggressively and unapologetically, and use “every legal means at our disposal to target illegal gun possession.”
“We’re going to target individuals concealing their identity. We’re going to target fare evasion. We’re going to target open drug use,” Lawson said. “We’re going to target every criminal code on the books, and when the law provides for our officers the ability to protect themselves through frisks, through learning if individuals are armed, we’re going to do that, in every case.”
Lawson added that the number of people monitoring the system via cameras was being increased. Officials were also looking into ways to allow employees to report potential problems discreetly so as not to endanger their safety, and riders are encouraged to do the same.
“I understand the fear. … What I hope they get is the fact that we’re committed,” Lawson said. “I have over 230 sworn officers absolutely committed to this fight, and they’re as frustrated and as angry as I am — and they’re engaged.”
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