Bystanders desperately try to help bloodsoaked, sobbing high school students shot at bus stop: ‘Philly is a warzone’
Harrowing video captured bystanders desperately trying to help some of the eight high school students shot at a Philadelphia bus stop as they sobbed and clutched their blood-soaked injuries.
The bystander footage of the traumatic aftermath of Wednesday’s mass shooting — in which cops say 30 shots were fired, leaving a 16-year-old boy in critical condition — was uploaded to X as proof that “Philly is a warzone.”
It shows frantic pedestrians trying to help several of the sobbing students prone on the sidewalk.
A distraught woman could be heard screaming as the crowd circled to help the children, with one of the male students groaning in pain over a gunshot wound in his right thigh.
Another victim beside him could be seen lying motionless as a large wound on his back created its own pool of blood on the sidewalk.
Philadelphia police confirmed that eight Northeast High School students, between the ages of 15 and 17, were injured when three gunmen fired 30 shots at them while they were waiting at a SEPTA bus stop in Philly’s Burholme neighborhood.
One of the teens — a 16-year-old boy who was struck nine times — was listed in critical condition and is fighting for his life, according to police and local reports.
Along with the video of the aftermath, police put out their own footage of the moment the three masked suspects driving a dark blue Hyundai Sonata pulled up to a nearby Dunkin Donuts parking lot and rushed out of the car to attack the students.
The video shows the moment the suspects pulled their firearms and began firing at the teens. The unidentified suspects then make a quick getaway with the driver.
While police have yet to state a motive for the shooting, they believe they’ve located the suspects’ getaway car, which was impounded in Philly’s Olney neighborhood, ABC 6 reports.
Wednesday’s mass shooting was only the latest in a series of violent incidents plaguing the City of Brotherly Love’s public transportation system.
On Tuesday night, a man was shot dead at a Route 79 bus in south Philadelphia, and on Monday, a 17-year-old boy was killed and four others were injured when shots rang out at a different bus stop in the Ogontz neighborhood.
Sunday saw a 27-year-old fatally shot following an argument on a SEPTA bus in the Oxford Circle neighborhood, according to local reports.
Police and Mayor Cherelle Parker have vowed to use “every legal tool in the toolbox” to ensure commuters’ safety aboard the city’s transit system.
