A 15-year-old boy already involved in two other shootings pulled out a gun and opened fire on a group of girls inside a car near Temple University after the girls used pepper spray to get the teen and his friends away from their vehicle, Philadelphia police said.
The incident occurred about a block away from Temple’s Liacouras Center Friday night on Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad street. Police said a group of seven to eight teenagers standing on the corner spotted a car with three 17-year-old girls and a 16-year-old girl inside and ran towards their vehicle.
One of the teen boys tried to get the phone number from one of the girls. The girls tried to roll the windows up but the teen boys surrounded their car, police said. At least one of the girls then used pepper spray to get the teen boys away from them. As the teen boys ran away, one member of their group, a 15-year-old, allegedly pulled out a gun and fired eight shots at the car.
A 17-year-old girl in the front passenger seat was shot in the leg while the 16-year-old girl who was sitting in the back of the car was shot in the back.
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The 15-year-old boy fled as a Philadelphia Police helicopter flew over the scene, investigators said. The teen reached 20th Street and Montgomery Avenue where he handed the gun to a 14-year-old boy, according to police. The 14-year-old then forced his way inside his grandmother’s home nearby.
“The grandmother tried to keep him from getting into the house,” Philadelphia Police Captain John Walker said. “He pushed through, took the gun and put it into the kitchen cabinet.”
Responding police officers found the gun inside the home, police said. Both the 15-year-old boy and 14-year-old boy were arrested.
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The two teen girls who were shot were taken to the hospital and later released.
“It is horrifying to all of us to see kids who are in these formative years in life who should be out there enjoying life, sitting up in hospitals and shooting guns,” Captain Walker said.
The 14-year-old boy was charged with a firearms violation and later released to his parents. The 15-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder and is being held on $2 million bail. Police also said the 15-year-old was involved in at least two other shootings in Philadelphia this month.
On March 14, the 15-year-old shot at a home on the 1500 block of Gratz Street because he was angry the parents inside wouldn’t let their child hang out with him, police said.
On March 5, the 15-year-old shot a 14-year-old near Temple University on Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad Street, according to investigators. Police said that shooting was in retaliation for another shooting that had occurred on March 4.
Police are working with the Philadelphia School District to try and get the backgrounds of teen suspects in violent crimes to find out what’s leading to the shootings.
“Mothers of some of these kids have told us it’s just neighborhood stuff,” Captain Walker said. “But this neighborhood stuff is rising to these kids shooting, which is obviously concerning to us. But we feel we have direct services in place now to try to work through this stuff and we feel we have the ability to start hopefully getting a handle on this stuff.”
There are additional resources for people or communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Further information can be found here.
