A stray bullet pierces window of a N. Philly school and enters classroom. No children injured.
“I don’t think any of it makes sense,” said Virgil Johnson, president of Hope Partnership for Education, the school where a bullet struck a second-floor classroom window Tuesday.
A stray bullet pierced the window of a classroom Tuesday afternoon, terrifying students and staff working inside and sending the school into lockdown.
Virgil Sheppard, president of Hope Partnership for Education, a private middle school and adult education center, said no students were injured in the shooting incident, which happened around 2 p.m.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said Tuesday that at least 50 shots were fired outside the school, but no one was injured. A SEPTA bus also was struck by the gunfire, he said.
Vanore said that police were still gathering information on what happened, and that it was unclear how many shooters were involved, or what their motive was.
The school immediately went into lockdown mode after the bullet entered a second-floor classroom of the building on North 11th Street, not far from Lehigh Avenue, Sheppard said.
Once police determined no one was in immediate danger, school officials gathered the school’s roughly 60 students, plus staff, to talk through what had happened.
“We believe in a strong sense of community,” said Sheppard, whose school offers tuition-free education to city students from disadvantaged households.
Though the city’s gun violence crisis means many Hope students had already experienced gun-related trauma before Tuesday, the incident shook the school, he said.
“Everyone is processing it differently,” he said.
Authorities had no immediate information about how many people were involved in the shooting, or how many guns were used. No arrests had been made.
State Sen. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Phila.) said the incident, which came on the same day the city hit the grim milestone of 500 homicide deaths, underscores the need for change.
“Thankfully no one was physically hurt inside or outside the school but the emotional toll on the students and staff is real,” Kenyatta said in a statement. “I’ve talked to the principal about how the state can assist. This madness has to end. We have the ability to pass legislation that would help prevent these further tragedies from happening.”