While sitting in a removable partial denture class today I couldn’t help but wish I was outside, enjoying the sun and avoiding a shooting?!? Yes, you heard it here first folks. A shooting occurred on the corner of Allegheny and Broad today in broad daylight on the same corner where the dental school is located. In case the link is broken in the future I have pasted the article here for you to read, along with a reference photo. Luckily, only the bad guy was injured.
PHILADELPHIA — A SEPTA police officer shot a suspected gunman Wednesday afternoon on a subway platform in North Philadelphia, police said.
The shooting happened at about 12:45 p.m. on the northbound side at the Broad Street Line’s Alllegheny Station platform, located at Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue.
“Shortly after I came up off the subway, I came over to the wall and I heard four consecutive shots ring out,” witness Eddie Steward said.SEPTA officials said two plainclothes detectives spotted the unidentified man smoking in between two rail cars and he was asked to stop but did not comply. When the officers and the man then got off at the stop, the man became confrontational and allegedly pointed a gun at the officers.
One officer then fired several shots, striking the 23-year-old man once in the shoulder.
Chopper 10 caught the man being brought out of the underground platform on a stretcher and being placed into an ambulance.Authorities said he was conscious when taken to Temple University Hospital and later listed in guarded condition.A SEPTA official said subway trains would not stop at the Allegheny Station while police investigate.SEPTA said it will run buses between Girard and Erie avenues until the scene is cleared at the Allegheny Station. They did not estimate how long the investigation might take.
Police said a .38-caliber gun was recovered at the scene. The names of the suspect and the officers were not released. SEPTA is continuing to investigate the shooting.The shooting comes on the heels of a rash of violence on the Broad Street line.SEPTA police said gangs of kids have attacked other teens at least four times over the past week.
Christopher Ebanks, 14, was the latest victim of that string of attacks, this one at the Broad and Lehigh station.”They just beat him unconsciously,” said his aunt, Beveral Mansaray. “He has head trauma. They stomped his face. His whole body is sore.”Wednesday night, doctors at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital are keeping a close eye on Ebanks. Family members said he has a broken nose, a swollen jaw and can hardly speak.
SEPTA police sources told Hairston that they are undermanned, and that’s why no one was around to stop this most recent rash of attacks.SEPTA’s chief press officer, Jim Whitaker, refused to go on camera but said the police force is not undermanned. He also said there are undercover officers permanently assigned to the trains. Philadelphia police ride the trains to help with security, and K-9 units are used as well on a regular basis.
So the NBC 10 Investigators took cameras undercover on the Broad Street line, riding the entire 13 miles from Proad and Pattison north to the Fern Rock Transportation Center.The NBC 10 crew passed 13 stops before spotting a uniformed officer on the train or the platform, and a K-9 unit was never seen.
According to a SEPTA memo obtained by the NBC 10 Investigators, the authority’s deputy chief, David Scott, instructed the department to use uniformed officers as plain clothes cops periodically “so at least the bad guys think there are plain clothes out there.”And Philadelphia police told Hairston that they do not assigned officers to ride the trains.
SEPTA police sources said Wednesday’s shooting was a clear sign of just how dangerous the subway can be, and an even clearer sign of why SEPTA needs to beef up its force, Hairston reported.
The news story can be found here at NBC10.



4 responses so far ↓
1 stephanie l. // Feb 21, 2008 at 3:21 am
wow, broad daylight.. that’s intense.
2 Colin G // Feb 22, 2008 at 6:11 pm
The really awesome part is that the two stations named in the article (Allegheny and Broad/Lehigh) are the two stations where I get on and off everyday. Maybe I should start carrying a discoid-cleiod in my pocket for defense.
3 Ben // Feb 23, 2008 at 7:28 am
Haha, I was thinking of selling some kevlar scrubs from the DMDstudent.com store. Does anyone think there is a market for these?
4 Kevin512 // Mar 14, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Wow, Brain Hahn is going to have a great time explaining this to interviewees! I can just hear what he is going to say now, “the shooting was in the subway, not on broad!”
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