The fatal shooting of a 16-year-old inside Chipotle bathroom may have been unintentional, sources say
Police believe that Khyon Smith-Tate was inside the bathroom with a friend when the gun went off.
A 16-year-old was found shot to death inside the bathroom of a Chipotle near Temple University’s campus Monday night in what investigators believe may have been an unintentional shooting, according to police and a law enforcement source.
Khyon Smith-Tate and three of his friends were inside the Chipotle on the ground floor of The View at Montgomery apartments at 12th Street and Montgomery Avenue around 5 p.m. Monday, police said. Smith-Tate and one friend went into one bathroom, while the two other teens went into the second bathroom, said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.
According to surveillance video, the teen with Smith-Tate left the restroom alone a short time later, and then walked out of the restaurant with the other teens, Vanore said.
About 15 minutes later, a restaurant employee found Smith-Tate suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest, he said. Police and medics responded, and pronounced him dead at the scene, officials said.
No gun was recovered, though officers found one spent shell casing from a 9mm handgun in the trash can, Vanore said.
Smith-Tate was a student at Imhotep Institute Charter High School. His mother, overwhelmed with grief, declined to speak Monday at her North Philadelphia home.
Police have identified the three teens involved, Vanore said, and are poring over cell phone data and interviewing witnesses to try to learn what happened inside the bathroom.
A law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said detectives are looking into whether the teens may have been filming a social media video or playing with a gun when it fired and unintentionally struck Smith-Tate.
The source, who asked not to be identified to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the teens are all close friends. Still, they did not call for help, the source said, and left him to die on the bathroom floor.
Smith-Tate is the first child under 18 to be shot and killed in Philadelphia this year, and his death comes after homicides in the city reached near-historic lows last year.
If it is confirmed that the shooting was unintentional, Smith-Tate would be the latest in a growing list of children shot by a mishandled gun in Philadelphia.
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Dozens of kids have been wounded in accidental shootings in recent years, often the result of other children finding unsecured guns in their homes. Just last month, a 14-year-old was seriously wounded when another teen playing with a gun shot him in the stomach, police said.
Last year, 12-year-old Ethan Parker was shot and killed after police said his 17-year-old neighbor was playing with a gun while recording a song and accidentally fired it. Other victims have been even younger: like 3-year-old Kayden Barnes, who police said shot herself with her father’s gun in 2024, and 2-year-old Diora Porter-Brown, who was fatally shot by a cousin with an intellectual disability who found his grandmother’s firearm in 2023.