PHILADELPHIA — The voice came, loud and insistent, over the loudspeaker: “There’s a lockdown, there’s a lockdown.” Christian Kelly, a 12th grader sitting in his classroom, felt his heart race.
On this sunny Thursday afternoon, gunfire had erupted across the street from the North Philadelphia U School. Kelly was inside, but some of his classmates were in the schoolyard, and others inside the corner store across the street, inches away from the shooting. Adults on the playground sprang into action, hustling inside the 10 or so students who watched the shootout unfold — but not before they all watched the gunman race past them.
Violence is not new to Philadelphia, but the impact after virtual learning and the city’s surging gun crisis has been especially pronounced this school year. An eighth grader was shot to death in October on his way to E.W. Rhodes Elementary in North Philadelphia; less than two weeks later, gunfire injured two, killing one, at dismissal outside Lincoln High.
