A teenager was shot dead and four others injured in a Monday afternoon shooting at a bus stop in southeastern Pennsylvania, according to multiple reports.
Passengers were already on a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) bus near a daycare center in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Ogontz and some 15 to 20 other people were waiting to board the bus when two gunmen opened fire, 6abc Philadelphia reported. The crime scene was cordoned off by the police, shell casings littered the scene and the bus had bullet holes, footage in the video report showed.
The teenager who was shot dead was 17 years old, the outlet reported. Another 17-year-old teenager sustained a graze wound to the shoulder, a 15-year-old teenager sustained a graze wound to the back, a 50-year-old woman was shot in the arm and a 70-year-old woman was shot in the head, Philadelphia Police told 6abc Philadelphia. All four injured persons are reportedly recovering at a hospital.
The armed gunmen were juveniles, according to CBS Philadelphia.
“We’re never fortunate when we lose a child, in particular a 17-year-old. But when you look around, how busy this intersection is, a daycare across the street, and then multiple people on the bus, and multiple rounds being fired, it could have been much worse,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel told reporters, 6abc Philadelphia footage showed.
“It definitely appears that this individual at the scene was targeted,” Bethel also said, referring to the slain teenager, according to CBS Philadelphia.
The female adult victims were innocent bystanders already on the bus, Bethel reportedly added. “They’re stable,” he said, CBS Philadelphia reported. “The bullet went through the glass [which] was able to slow down the bullet and so we’re very, very fortunate.” The septuagenarian woman with the bullet in her head was talking in the hospital and appeared stable, he added.
The 15 to 20 people waiting to board the bus were students, Bethel said, the Associated Press reported. Afternoons right after school hours have become some of the most dangerous, violent times in Philadelphia, Bethel reportedly added.
The police are investigating the incident and reviewing the SEPTA bus footage of the shooting, as they look to apprehend the suspects, who are at large, CBS Philadelphia reported. (RELATED: Handcuffed Car Theft Suspect Escaped Custody, Philadelphia Police Say)
The incident followed a Sunday night shooting on a SEPTA bus in Oxford Circle, about six miles east of Ogontz, during an altercation between two men on board the bus, 6abc Philadelphia separately reported. The suspect fatally shot 27-year-old Sawee Kofa, a Liberia Civil War escapee and Philadelphia resident since 2001, as they both disembarked, according to the outlet. The suspect is reportedly at large.
“We escaped the war in our country just to come for my nephew to be…and that a gun take him away. It’s just like we’re reliving the trauma again,” Kofa’s aunt, Walea Kofa-Payne, told 6abc Philadelphia.