Thousands of people have been shot near Philly schools in just the last few years

This week’s shooting after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School, which left a 14-year-old boy dead and four other teens wounded, fits into a grim pattern in Philadelphia: kids being shot within sight of a school.

Thousands of people have been shot near schools in Philadelphia in recent years, according to an Inquirer analysis of police data. Almost a quarter of all victims in the last five years — about 2,260 out of more than 9,600 — were shot within 400 feet of a school.

Of those victims, 12%, or 270, were children; 36 of them died.

In the last year alone, there have been at least 528 people shot within 400 feet of a school. Half of all victims have been shot within a little over 700 feet of school property — about the length of two football fields.

» READ MORE: The Roxborough school shooting has educators asking: If a football scrimmage isn’t safe, what is?

The Inquirer’s analysis is based on police data subject to human error. About 5% of shootings have no location given, and some locations may be inaccurate. Police also may not know about every shooting victim, and the data exclude shootings in which no one was hit. Because of that, there are likely more shootings occurring near school grounds that aren’t captured in the data.

Still, the available statistics suggest gun violence near schools is pervasive.

» READ MORE: How to talk to kids about the Roxborough High School shooting

Few places in the city are much more than walking distance from at least one school, and more than two-thirds of all recorded shooting victims were struck within 1,000 feet of a school. (The analysis includes all the recorded victims, regardless of the time of day or year; many of the shootings occurred on weekends, at night, during the summer, and other times outside of school hours.)

The phenomenon isn’t new. The share of shootings occurring near schools was similar before 2020, when gun violence in Philadelphia started to rise dramatically.

The rapid increase in gun violence has also claimed more juvenile victims overall.

As of Tuesday, 177 children had been shot in Philadelphia and 23 had been killed this year. Both figures are more than double those from all of 2015.

Last month, Mayor Jim Kenney announced a $10,000 reward for information on shootings that take place within 500 feet of a school, recreation center, or library. In the past five years, at least 30% of shootings occurred within 500 feet of a school.

» READ MORE: For area football coaches, the tragedy at Roxborough High hits home

Shootings near schools, and particularly at school sporting events, have become a concern across the country. Just last Friday, four high school football games saw shootings, including one in Philadelphia, where no one was injured.

“It’s the kind of thing that happens over and over,” said David Riedman, who founded the K-12 School Shooting Database. “It’s happening in every size community, in every part of the country.”

Educators say proximity to shootings doesn’t just place kids in harm’s way. It also traumatizes and desensitizes them to violence.

“I would say unfortunately our young men are becoming numb, and that’s a sad thing,” said John Davidson, who coaches football at Mastery Charter North.

“You should have a heightened level of reaction to hearing such news,” he said. “[My players] didn’t.”

The latest on the shooting: The SUV used in the Roxborough High School shooting had been stolen, police said

Graphics Editor John Duchneskie contributed to this article.