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At least eight teenagers were injured when a group of gunmen fired more than 30 shots at a SEPTA bus stop in Northeast Philadelphia’s Burholme neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
The shooting happened around 3 p.m. at the intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman avenues. Police received numerous 911 calls about gunshots erupting near a Dunkin’ Donuts at the intersection.
The wounded teenagers, all students at nearby Northeast High School, had been waiting to board a bus when three suspected gunmen got out of a parked car and opened fire at the bus, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
The injured teens range between 15 and 17 years old, police said. They were taken to hospitals to be treated for their injuries, and the most seriously injured was a teen shot nine times and in critical condition. Wednesday evening police police released more information about the ages, injuries and conditions of each of the victims:
• Male, 16, shot nine times in the torso; critical condition
• Male, 16, gunshot wounds to the chest, right leg, and right arm; stable condition
• Male, 15, shot twice, once in left arm, once in upper back; stable condition
• Male, 15, shot in the lower back; stable condition
• Female, 16, gunshot wounds to the left buttocks and right thigh, stable condition
• Male, 17, shot in the left leg; stable condition
• Male, 16, gunshot wound to the left leg, stable condition
6ABC reported the suspected shooters wore masks and then left the scene in a dark blue Hyundai sedan driven by a fourth suspect. The vehicle reportedly was last seen crossing the Tookany Creek Bridge toward Cheltenham Township.
Two SEPTA buses nearby the shooting scene — a Route 18 bus and a Route 67 bus — were each struck by bullets, spokesperson Andrew Busch said. No passengers or SEPTA employees were hit. One of the buses is being held at a nearby terminal for further investigation, police said.
Bethel was joined at Wednesday’s news conference by Mayor Cherelle Parker, who pledged to address a surge in shootings over the last several days — including several at SEPTA bus stops.
“We will not be held hostage. We will use every legal tool in the toolbox to ensure the public health and safety of the people of our city,” Parker said.
Wednesday’s shooting happened at what is known as the Five Points intersection in the Burlhome neighborhood, where numerous businesses and at least four day cares and preschools are within the vicinity.
The scene of the shooting is about 3/4 of a mile from Northeast High at 1601 Cottman Ave. The Kennedy Crossan School, a K-5 public school, also is two blocks away from the Five Points at Bleigh Avenue and Bingham Street.
On Monday, a 17-year-old boy was killed and four other people were injured when two gunmen fired at a SEPTA bus that had stopped near the intersection of Broad Street and Godfrey Avenue. Two of the other people injured in that shooting were teenagers.
“It’s hard to sit here, in three days, and have 11 juveniles shot who were going and coming from school,” said Bethel, who served as the city’s chief of school safety before Parker appointed him to lead the police department. “The cowardly acts that we’ve seen over the last three days are unacceptable.”
Crisis counselors will be available on Thursday at Northeast High and at Imhotep Institute Charter High School, which is less than a mile from the scene of Monday’s shooting in Ogontz.
“As a result of what we’ve seen over the last three days, we’re going to be ramping up our resources significantly,” Bethel said. “I want parents and families to know that we’re going to be along our corridors across the entire city of Philadelphia until we can figure out exactly what’s going on in this situation — and whether it’s linked to the situation on Monday.”
Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony B. Watlington said he and his colleagues are “heartbroken and angry” about the uptick in gun violence involving students from city schools, and SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said his department will work with city leaders to stop the recent pattern of shootings on and near city buses.
On Sunday, a 27-year-old man was fatally shot in the Oxford Circle neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia after an argument escalated on a Route 59 bus, investigators said. Then on Tuesday evening, a 37-year-old man was shot and killed as he stood in the doorway of a Route 79 bus near Broad Street and Snyder Avenue in South Philadelphia. The gunman opened fire after an argument, police said.
Authorities have not yet made any arrests in the string of shootings.
Lawson said SEPTA planned to “be aggressive” in trying to stop the gun violence impacting the transit system.
“What we can definitively say is overwhelmingly the pattern that we see in our system is that individuals who are armed – overwhelmingly illegally – get into verbal arguments which escalate to violent encounters and then the armed individual uses the weapon,” Lawson said at a separate news conference earlier Wednesday.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner vowed to prosecute the people responsible for Wednesday’s shooting.
“We will catch the people who did this. We will hold those people in custody. We will charge them and we will vigorously prosecute them,” Krasner said. “And we will give them the consequences that they absolutely deserve for this devastating and horrifying act.”
Below, watch Parker, Bethel and other city leaders speak during the press briefing at the scene of Wednesday’s shooting.
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Michael Tanenbaum
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