RIYADH/PHILADELPHIA
A succession of four gun incidents on the transit system of Pennsylvania in the past four days has raised the total number of mass shootings in the gun-crazy United States to 71 so far, according to a site tracking gun violence in the world’s most powerful nation.
Police said eight Philadelphia high school students waiting to board a city bus after classes Wednesday were wounded by gunshots from suspects who jumped from a car and opened fire, the fourth shooting on the transit system in as many days.
The previous three shootings each involved a fatality. At least one student was critically wounded at the bus stop, a 16-year-old who was hit nine times, city police said.
The others were in stable condition.
Based on the US gun violence record for the past years, the number could rise exponentially. Last year, there were 43,103 gun violence cases across the nation, leaving 19,013 dead and 36,430 injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
For the past 10 years, the site recorded a total of 491,049 incidences of gun violence nationwide, with 170,289 deaths and 332,885 injuries.
Kevin Bethel, the city’s police commissioner, said at a news conference that the Northeast High School students, ranging in age from 15 to 17, were waiting for the bus around 3 p.m. when three people emerged from the car, which was waiting at the scene, and fired more than 30 shots.
Police then received numerous 911 calls about a “mass shooting on the highway near Dunkin Donuts,” in northeast Philadelphia, according to police spokesperson Tanya Little.
The injured teens were taken to Einstein Medical Center and Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, according to John Golden, a spokesperson for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA. Two buses — a Route 18 bus and a Route 67 bus — were hit by gunfire, but there were no reports of injuries to passengers or the driver.
