Five high school football players were shot in a deadly “ambush” after a scrimmage in Philadelphia on Tuesday, authorities said. A 14-year-old boy was killed in the process.
Two gunmen allegedly opened fire after a game at Roxborough High School that killed the 14-year-old boy, Philadelphia deputy police commissioner John Stanford told reporters.
The players ran off the field when gunshots came from a light green Ford Explorer, police said in a statement.
The teen was beaten in the chest and pronounced dead at a hospital at 5:09 p.m., the statement said.
Other victims included a 17-year-old who was hit once in the arm and three times in the leg and a 14-year-old who was hit once in the thigh, the department said. Another player suffered a scrape, Stanford said.
Details of the fifth victim’s injuries were not immediately available.
No victims or suspects have been publicly identified. A motive remained unknown, Stanford said.
Players from three schools were involved in the scrimmage, Stanford said. All those affected attend Roxborough, northwest of downtown Philadelphia, he said.
The gunmen appeared to have fired “a lot of” bullets at the players, Stanford said.
“Most of this — there’s a 14-year-old doing what college students do, holding football games at the end of the day,” Stanford said. “It’s one of the things we encourage our kids to do.”
Speaking to reporters, Philadelphia School Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said he was “personally distressed and frankly angry at this senseless act of violence.”
The shooting happened the same day Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order banning guns in city recreation centers, playgrounds, swimming pools and similar facilities, which have recorded 18 shootings this year and 300 since 2019. NBC Philadelphia reported.
More than 1,400 people have been affected in nonfatal shootings in Philadelphia this year, according to city data. There have been 400 homicides, a 1% drop from the same time last year, the most violent ever in the city, according to NBC Philadelphia.
Gemma DiCasimirro and Yasmeen Persaud contributed.