Three teenagers were killed and a fourth person was wounded after a shooting in Philadelphia.
The quadruple shooting occurred at around 3.30pm on Friday in the Lawncrest neighbourhood northeast of downtown Philadelphia.
Police on Saturday named the victims as Malik Ballard, 17, Khalif Frezghi, 18 and Salah Fleming, 14.
A fourth victim, 16, arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach.
Two juvenile males, aged 15 and 16, were arrested and charged with violation of the Uniform Firearms Act and related offences.
What we know about the shooting
Police arrived on the 5900 block of Palmetto Street on Friday afternoon to find one person lying on the sidewalk, another on the porch and a third inside the home.
All three were pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said they found 17-year-old Malik lying on the sidewalk and bleeding from the gunshot wound.
Khalif, 18, was found dead on the front porch of the house.
And the youngest fatality, 14-year-old Salah, was found just inside the doorway of the residence.
Another victim, a 16-year-old male who has not been identified, had suffered a gunshot wound and reached Jefferson Frankford Hospital in a car.
What we know about the suspects
Two juvenile boys were arrested from a car on Friday evening by the police.
Shortly after the shooting, police said ballistic evidence was recovered from Palmetto Street and a gun was found inside the residence.
Police said they identified a black Ford Edge that is believed to have been used during the shooting. The car was found in a damaged state on the 500 block of East Wyoming Street.
The 15- and 16-year-olds were arrested following the recovery of the car.
They have been charged with firearms and related offences.
The motive of the shooting remains unknown and the investigation remains active.
It is believed that the two suspects dropped off the injured person at the hospital before fleeing and crashing their car.
‘My heart is very heavy’
Officials from the School District of Philadelphia confirmed at least two of the victims, including the wounded teen and Salah, the youngest fatality, were their students.
They were studying at the Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School of Philadelphia, the school’s founder and chief administrator told the Inquirer.
Salah had enrolled at the school and begun eighth grade in September, said Veronica J Joyner, adding that his teachers praised him as “very mannerable, very quiet and hardworking”.
“My heart is very heavy because of the number of children we have lost. The number keeps climbing. It’s a crisis in the city and we must stop it,” said Ms Joyner.
She said the hospitalised student is an 11th grader at the school.
“Both of the young men are very respectable and they’re good students,” Ms Joyner said.
She was not aware of any disputes or arguments among the pupils of the school that might have led to the shooting, she said.
She added that Salah did not attend the school that day.
She said she was not aware of any conflicts within the school that might have carried over to Palmetto Street and the shooting there Friday afternoon. She said Salah had not been in school on Friday.
Shierea Owens, who had to walk her seven-year-old daughter around the neighbourhood of the crime scene that was sealed with yellow tape, said she was shocked.
“There’s no accountability today,” Ms Owens told KYW. “That’s too close for home.”
“This is getting worse and worse, and something needs to be done,” said another woman at the scene. “There’s violence across the whole US but Philadelphia has a problem and something needs to be done.”
The incident comes as more than two dozen shots were fired during a gunbattle outside the city’s Lawncrest Recreation Center just two weeks ago.
Police said nearly 30 shots were fired during the shooting, including one bullet that went through the window of a daycare.
“It’s frustrating ’cause again, I know the work that our men and women are doing in trying to stop, trying to prevent these types of incidents from happening,” said deputy commissioner John Stanford with Philadelphia police.
“But again, we can’t lose hope, because if we lose hope, everyone in this city will lose hope.”
The US is setting a devastating record pace for mass killings in 2023, according to the Associated Press. The country has seen at least 176 mass shootings in the first four months of this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence, gang retaliation, school shootings and workplace vendettas. All incidents listed as mass killings by the report have respectively led to the deaths of at least four or more people since 1 January.
