After Subway Shooting, Officials Keeping Wary Eye On Philadelphia Schools
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Detectives are still looking for the triggerman in yesterday's shooting aboard a Broad Street subway train (see related story).
In the meantime, the School District of Philadelphia is disputing reports that the gunfire stemmed from a rivalry among schools.
School district officials say there is no rivalry among students at Gratz, Fels, and Hartranft schools, and that this shooting apparently stemmed from a neighborhood disagreement.
Mastery Charter schools, which runs Gratz High, says the school had adults escorting students to SEPTA for the last several days, after hearing rumors about neighborhood tensions.
But the chief of the school district police, chief inspector Myron Patterson, says he wasn't told of those tensions.
"That information did not come to my attention, for whatever the breakdown was," he told KYW Newsradio today.
But Mastery Charter spokeswoman Courtney Collins-Shapiro says the school has been working closely with the 39th District of the Philadelphia police department.
"We're always in communication with the Philly PD," she said today, "but we've been in constant contact since Friday about some of the things going on in the community."
Collins-Shapiro says Mastery has been meeting with SEPTA police and the Philadelphia Anti-Drug Anti-Violence Network to try to keep kids safe outside of school.
Police are still reviewing surveillance video and haven't decided yet whether they need to release that video to the public.
The 14-year-old Hartranft school student who was shot in the leg remains in critical condition. The 17-year-old Fels High student shot in the arm is in stable condition.
