Police have suspect in custody in shooting at Philly high school

An individual involved in the Olney school shooting that injured two students Friday afternoon at the Delaware Valley Charter School has been apprehended.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Police have one suspect in custody and continue to search for one, possibly two individuals in connection with the incident. The individual in custody is also a student and was apprehended in the city’s Grays Ferry neighborhood.

“It’s like any other investigation now we’re able to talk to the victims, talk to the kids who may have seen something take place.  And we have one person in custody that was at least part of it, with an individual that had a gun if not the shooter himself. And we are looking for a second person and perhaps a third.”

The two students who were injured, both 15, were reportedly both hit in the arm. The boy and girl were transported to Albert Einstein Medical Center where they were in stable condition.

Ramsey said at least three people ran from the building today and those are the individuals Police have been working to track down. 

“We have one, we need the other two.”

Police are not sure of the motive in the shooting, including whether it was intentional or an accident. Ramsey said Police continue to search for the gun.

“We don’t know if it was one bullet that struck both, that’s a strong possibility, but we can’t say with 100% certainty. There’s still a lot of work that has to happen.”

Ramsey said he does know that there was a good response after the incident occurred.

“We’ve been able to lock this down very quickly and get information very quickly about who the suspect was.”

Ramsey said the incident is certainly something of concern as similar incidents have also unfolded around the country. He told NBC10 that for parents,

“It’s a great deal of anxiety I would imagine. I mean you send your kid to school, you don’t expect to pick ’em up in a hospital. It shouldn’t happen. It just absolutely shouldn’t happen. And we see it all too often in other parts of our country,” he said.

Ramsey cited a recent incident in Roswell, New Mexico, saying shootings in school are becoming “far too common.”

“The one place that should be safe and secure is a school. We just simply should not have these kinds of things happening,” he said. “Clearly a breach in security of some kind. We don’t know how it happened but kids should not be able to get a gun in a school.”

Police say the shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. at the school at 5201 Old York Road in the Olney section of the city.

 Ramsey said video shows seven or eight kids were in the the school’s gymnasium where the shooting happened. 

Lt. John Stanford said the shooter used a handgun, then fled from the school. The school reportedly has a metal detector, raising the question of how the gun was brought into the school.

Police urged parents to remain calm. Shortly after the shooting, students were being released from the school, which was in lockdown, one by one.

One parent, Dawn Humbert, said that as of 5:20 p.m. her 11th grade daughter was still in the building and hadn’t yet been permitted to leave. Police have since said the school has been cleared.

Parents were being asked to go to Fisher Avenue and Old York Road to pick up their children. Police say parents should “not go to the school.”

Check back shortly for more updates.

Holly Otterbein and Emma Jacobs contributed to this report.