PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 2-year-old girl, her mother and five teens have been wounded in shootings near a Philadelphia school on Thursday evening, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.
The shootings happened just before 6 p.m. near the corner of 31st and Norris streets by East Fairmount Park in Strawberry Mansion, close to the schoolyard by James G. Blaine School.
According to police, the 2-year-old girl was shot in the left thigh and taken to a hospital in stable condition. She is the daughter of a 31-year-old woman who was shot twice in her left leg and hospitalized in stable condition.
Police say that a 15-year-old boy was shot twice in his chest and on the right side of his body, and was transported to a hospital. Outlaw said he was placed in critical condition.
A 13-year-old boy who was shot in his left hand, a 16-year-old who was shot in his left arm, and another 16-year-old who was shot in his right arm and left thigh were all taken to hospitals and placed in stable condition, police said.
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Outlaw said that a seventh victim, a 17-year-old boy, went to a local hospital with a graze wound and is in stable condition.
She said there could be multiple shooters involved.
"We are piecing together if this was retaliatory, if the victims were intended or not," she said.
No one was arrested right after the shootings, according to authorities. There was no initial word on whether any weapons were recovered from the scene.
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The shootings came five nights after the deadly shooting of Temple University Police Officer Chris Fitzgerald, and two days after two teens were shot in a targeted attack against one of the victims, just blocks from where Fitzgerald was killed — all in the 22nd Police District.
"This has been a fairly quiet portion of the 22nd District," said Outlaw about the area where Thursday night's shootings happened, more than a mile from the scene of the other two shootings.
Outlaw said that police is trying to be strategic in fighting the city's gun violence issue, and in her words, not just "throwing bodies" at the problem despite a shorthanded police force with more than 100 unfilled officer positions.
"We're constantly working around the clock to try and make sure this is effective," said Outlaw at the crime scene.
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"We don't have the resources that we did two years ago, three years ago, five years ago ... we're going to continue to work with what we have."
Outlaw also shared that there is an emotional toll to their job fighting gun violence, especially in a week where law enforcement officers are grieving the loss of one of their own.
"It's really important for people to realize we're not commodities. We're human beings. We're not pawns," said Outlaw.
"It's been a very, very difficult week."
The School District of Philadelphia said they are pulling together counselors, social workers, school psychologists and other mental health clinicians for students and staff affected by the shootings.
"It's just getting worse," said Jayme Banks, the district's deputy chief of prevention, intervention & trauma.
"We need everyone, not just the district. We need the city, we need everyone to wrap around this. This is ridiculous. It's sad."
Mike DeNardo and Jay Sorgi contributed to this report.
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