SEPTA shooting: Teen fatally shot on bus in Germantown, police say
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A fight on a SEPTA bus ended with a passenger shot and killed in Germantown Wednesday night. Philadelphia police said the bus driver was also close to the gunfire.
Now, less than 24 hours later, officials are taking steps to help keep riders safe.
"This is a violent time in this city," said SEPTA's chief of transit police, Charles Lawson.
Lawson made it clear Thursday that he is frustrated by the violence and this pattern is repeating itself too often. He said undercover officers will now be on board busses as much as possible moving forward in the wake of the deadly shooting.
The search is also on for the shooter responsible.
Just before 11 p.m., police responded to a shooting inside a SEPTA bus on the 5200 block of Germantown Avenue.
Surveillance video on the bus shows a man in a face mask boarding the Route 23 bus and immediately getting into an argument with the victim. Police said two men were sitting across from one another when a fight broke out.
That confrontation escalated after one of the men pulled out a gun and shot the passenger in the chest. Police said at least two shots were fired.
The victim, who is believed to be in his late teens, was taken to Einstein Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
"You never heard so much shooting on the bus before," said Nancy Ford, of North Philadelphia.
"It's traumatizing to the community even if we are far away from it," added fellow North Philadelphia resident, Judith Robinson.
SEPTA's chief said he wants people to realize that if you ride SEPTA, you are on hundreds of cameras.
"We're going to use all that video evidence to affect an arrest and we will not stop. We will not stop looking for you because we know you'll be back, and when you come back to take the next trip, be looking over your shoulder because we are coming," Lawson said.
Two shell casings on the bus and one of those bullets struck the glass partition that sits between the bus driver and passenger seats, police said.
"This 52-year-old SEPTA bus driver is extremely lucky to not be struck by gunfire. Because the bullet went through the glass partition, there are many, many shards of glass, on the driver seat. The bullet clearly went through the glass partition, about head level," said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.
The bus driver opened the doors and the shooter took off. He was last seen running south on Germantown Avenue.
Small said there were about eight passengers aboard the bus and some left before police arrived.
SEPTA is in the process of updating all its systems to real-time monitoring, Lawson said, and now plans to put transit police in plain clothes on board as another layer of safety.
"We typically use undercover officers and things like that on busses, we're gonna do that as much as we can moving forward," he said.
Lawson also made it clear that face masks are a problem and they're illegal on board SEPTA, adding that passengers will be asked to remove them or be escorted off the property.
As of Thursday morning, police have not released the victim's name and, so far, no arrests have been made. Police also said they have not recovered a weapon.
