Memorial for slain 14-year-old in Bensalem is vandalized
An unknown person destroyed the memorial for Peter Romano at a shopping center parking lot at 2636 Bristol Pike around 2:15 a.m. on Jan. 1.
Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a person seen in surveillance video destroying a memorial for Peter Romano, the 14-year-old middle schooler who was fatally shot during a fight on Halloween night in Bensalem.
The video shared by police on YouTube shows a person dressed in a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and dark pants jog to the location at a shopping center parking lot at 2636 Bristol Pike around 2:15 a.m. Jan. 1 and swing a “baseball bat or club” at the memorial, then appear to scatter flowers or other items before running away.
On Halloween night, Romano, a student at Cecelia Snyder Middle School in Bensalem, was shot in the chest when a gathering of young people turned into a fight. Two other teens were injured by gunfire.
Romano’s parents created the memorial at the scene of the shooting.
The shooter was seen fleeing in a stolen 2014 Hyundai Elantra and Bensalem police entered the vehicle’s details into a national law-enforcement database. On Nov. 2, police in Marysville, Ohio, spotted the vehicle and tried to stop the car.
Sean Hughes, a 19-year-old from Morrisville and Romano’s suspected shooter, fled on foot from the Hyundai, which had been disabled by a police spike strip, and was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Anyone with information about the memorial vandalism can contact the Bensalem Township Police Department at 215-633-3719 or submit a tip online.