2 stab victims in SEPTA subway are students at nearby school

Two 17-year-old boys critically injured in a Wednesday afternoon stabbing at SEPTA's Eighth and Market Streets subway concourse attend the nearby Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD), the school's top official said Thursday.

Gregory Wright, chief executive officer, said he had spoken by phone with the parents of one victim, who had surgery Wednesday night at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and who police said had been stabbed in his neck, stomach, and left arm. The teen is expected to recover, Wright said.

The other youth was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital after being stabbed in his chest and stomach and cut on the wrist, authorities said. As of early Thursday afternoon, Wright had not been able to contact that boy's parents.

No arrests had been made in the attack.

Philadelphia police on Thursday described the assailant as a black male, 17 to 18 years old, 5-foot-9, and about 160 pounds. He had close-cut black hair and wore a blue-and-gray hooded jacket with a red stripe, black pants, and black sneakers, police said.

The suspected assailant "did not attend this school, as far as I know," Wright said in an interview at the school along South Seventh Street. Both Wright and a police spokesman said they did not know the reason for the fight.

SEPTA authorities said the stabbings occurred about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday on the eastbound side platform of the subway line. Witnesses reported that a fight broke out and that another teenage boy stabbed the two 17-year-olds before fleeing, possibly on the train, spokesman Andrew Busch said.

Wright expressed concern about the SEPTA student transit pass, which allows students to take unlimited rides on subway, trolley, and bus lines until 7 p.m. on weekdays. "It means they can hang out, they can go everywhere they want," he said.

Every day, he said, the school's security officers escort students from the school, which has a 2:49 p.m. dismissal time, to the underground concourse to ensure that they board their trains, he said. Wednesday's stabbings occurred after security officers had done that, he said.

Busch, the SEPTA spokesman, said SEPTA police patrol the Eighth and Market concourse every weekday, and city police survey the streets above. The regular police presence is a precaution because that intersection is a major transit hub, he said.

Busch said the station "doesn't have a higher rate of incidents compared to other stations" and is "not a location where we're having regular after-school problems." Students from several nearby schools use the station, he said.

The last major incident involving students at the station occurred Dec. 1, when more than 100 teenagers were involved in a lunchtime brawl, three of whom were arrested, Busch said.

At that time, Busch had said the melee erupted around noon and involved youths from the Charter High School for Architecture and Design. Busch said Thursday he did not know whether students from that school were among the three arrested.

Wright did not comment Thursday on the December incident, but said students from various schools were in the subway at the time.

In response to Wright's concerns about the student transit passes, Busch said the vast majority of the 55,000 students who use the passes use them responsibly. The 7 p.m. shutoff time takes into account after-school activities, and SEPTA is unable to adjust the time for individual students on its current transit cards, he said.