PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A shooting at a Philadelphia rec center left a man in extremely critical condition Wednesday night.
The violence happened just a few days after a judge blocked the city from being able to enforce a gun ban at rec centers, which had been signed by Mayor Jim Kenney last week.
This shooting happened around 9:30 p.m. at the Stenton Park Rec Center in the Logan section of the city. Police responded to reports of gunshots, and when officers arrived, they found the 36-year-old victim facedown with a gunshot wound to the head.
“Where we found him lying was not too far from the basketball court and also not too far from the playground area,” Chief Inspector Scott Small said, adding that they found seven spent shell casings at the scene.
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was rushed to the hospital.
A motive is not clear, and police are trying to figure out who pulled the trigger. Police will be looking at the rec center surveillance footage in the investigation.
This is the type of violence Kenney said he wanted to prevent. He signed an executive order on Sept. 27 banning guns at all city recreational facilities.
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There have been roughly 300 incidents of gun violence at city rec centers since 2019, officials said.
Prior to Wednesday night's shooting at Stenton Park, no incidents were reported at rec centers when the ban was enforceable. However, that does not confirm that the ban had been working as intended.
“There’s no reason on God’s green Earth to bring a gun to a pool or rec center. There’s just none,” Kenney said during the signing last week, which took place one day after Tiffany Fletcher, the rec center worker who was killed by crossfire in West Philadelphia, was laid to rest.
On Monday, however, a Common Pleas Court judge granted a permanent injunction, ruling that state law prohibits the city from regulating the ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of guns. The lobby group Gun Owners of America filed the request.
City officials argue that since rec centers and other facilities are city-owned, they could enforce such a rule, much like a hospital or sporting venue.
There is no word from the city yet on if or when an appeal would be filed.