‘Everything escalated so fast’ | Morning Newsletter
🗳️ And what voter registration data tells us
The Morning Newsletter
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The sun is out but still bring a sweater. Temps will reach the high 60s.
We’re starting the day with somber news. A shooting left one teenager dead and four others injured at Roxborough High School after an afternoon football scrimmage. It’s the latest tragedy that showcases high school athletes being forced to face the trauma of gun violence and death.
What we know is 👇🏽, as our reporters and photographers continue to gather information.
More on this, including the latest developments as we learn more today, can be found on Inquirer.com.
If you see this 🔑 in today’s newsletter, that means we’re highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.
— Taylor Allen (@TayImanAllen, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
The three-way scrimmage between Roxborough, Northeast, and Boys Latin High Schools’ junior varsity football teams had just wrapped up around 4:30 pm Tuesday afternoon, and players were grabbing their gear and walking toward the bus.
As a group of Roxborough players walked past a car waiting outside the field, police said, four gunmen opened fire, striking five of them.
The latest: Police haven’t identified a motive.
It’s unclear how many shots were fired, but police said there were many. There were upwards of 73 evidence markers of shell casings and bullet fragments on the street.
“This used to be a safe haven for our young people,” Kevin Bethel, chief of safety for Philadelphia schools, said. “And to see that now our young people can’t even come into scrimmage game and be shot is totally unacceptable.” He said district will offer trauma support services for students.
The victims: The shooters briefly chased a 14-year-old boy and shot him in the chest. He was rushed to Einstein Medical Center but died shortly after he arrived there.
Four other players ranging in age from 14 to 17 were injured. Three were rushed to Einstein and Temple Hospitals and remain in stable condition.
Another suffered a graze wound and did not require medical treatment.
“We just started running. We ran all the way to the other side of the field,” said Justin Williams, a Boys Latin junior who was a mere 20 feet away from the Roxborough boys when the shots rang out.
Kids jumped fences and left their belongings, desperate to get away. Shoulder pads were scattered on the sidewalk Tuesday evening, surrounded by shell casings and evidence markers.
Players were temporarily held inside the high school as guardians arrived to pick them up.
Our reporters, photographers, and editors worked throughout the night to report updates. Follow live developments today on Inquirer.com.
What you should know today
Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order to ban guns at Philly recreation centers. The move could lead to legal challenges and reignite the debate about whether the city should be able to write its own gun laws.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro out-fundraised State Sen. Doug Mastriano, taking in $8 for every $1 Mastriano raised from early June to mid-September. Mastriano reports raising $3.2 million compared to Shapiro’s $25.4 million.
Former Abscam Congressman “Ozzie” Myers is going back to prison for election fraud.
Local coronavirus numbers: Here’s your daily look at the latest COVID-19 data.
A decade ago, Pennsylvania Democrats outnumbered Republicans by one million registered voters, or about 13 percentage points.
This year it’s down to 540,000, about six percentage points.
Note: Voter registration doesn’t necessarily predict how someone will vote, let alone the winners of individual elections. But the gains allow parties to more effectively engage voters who are likely to support them, and changes can reveal electoral trends.
A detailed Inquirer analysis of voter registration data over two decades shows a state that is accelerating long-term political shifts along geographic and demographic lines.
The takeaways: Republicans are adding voters all across the state from most counties. They’re also getting significant growth of voters switching from other parties.
Democrats are adding voters in the big Democratic counties, especially in the Philadelphia suburbs. They’re not getting party-switchers like the Republicans but they are gaining new voters, especially young ones.
There’s a steadily rising number of voters (about 15% of the electorate) who are registering as independent or with a third party. Regardless, these folks still often vote for Democrats or Republicans.
Reporters Jonathan Lai and Julia Terruso teamed up to explain the driving forces behind the shift.
Today is the first day of jury selection for the retrial of City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson and his wife, Dawn Chavous
It’s a case that once again threatens to make Johnson — a three-term Democrat from Point Breeze — the second City Council member convicted on public corruption charges in less than a year.
Necessary context: The proceedings come months after a previous panel couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on charges that Johnson accepted more than $66,000 in bribes to aid a financially struggling nonprofit that wanted to hold onto real estate in his district.
Prosecutors tried to prove Johnson accepted payoffs in the form of a consulting contract for his wife, Dawn Chavous, from two executives at Universal Companies, the South Philly community development nonprofit and charter school operate founded by music producer Kenny Gamble.
The defense argued the contract is unrelated to Johnson’s work on Council. Chavous has had a separate and robust career as a well-known charter school advocate and professional consultant.
The evidence is the same and the witness lists are similar to the last time around.
Reporters Jeremy Roebuck and Anna Orso share why both the prosecutors and the defense team are confident about getting a verdict the second time around.
What we’re...
📰 Reading: Why ducklings swim in a single file. The research is by a West Chester scientist, appropriately named Frank Fish 🔑
🎤 Listening: To Allison Russell’s Tiny Desk concert. Start your morning with this and I promise you’ll be in a good mood the rest of the day.
📚 Contemplating: Picking up Celeste Ng’s latest book, Our Missing Hearts, which comes out next week.
🧩 Unscramble the Anagram 🧩
Hint: David Lee
JAZZ PAWIN
Think you know? Send your guess our way at morningnewsletter@inquirer.com. We’ll give a shout-out to a reader at random who answers correctly. Today’s shout-out goes to Sandy Strauss, who correctly guessed Otto Distilling as Tuesday’s answer.
Photo of the Day
And that’s everything you need this Wednesday morning. I’ll be back here the same time tomorrow.