Two teenagers arrested after three children were shot to death in Philadelphia

Police arrested two Philadelphia teens after a shooting Friday afternoon left three others dead, including a student who was still in eighth grade, and a fourth teen hospitalized.

The 15 and 16-year-old suspects have not been identified but have been charged with violation of the Uniform Firearms Act and related offenses, according to the philadelphia enquirer.

Police on Saturday named the victims as 17-year-old Malik Ballard; Khalif Frezghi, 18; and Salah Fleming, 14. A fourth victim, 16, arrived at hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach, the newspaper reported.

Both the injured teen and the younger victim, Fleming, were students at the Math, Civics and Science Charter School of Philadelphia, Inc., the school’s founder and managing director said. investigator. Fleming enrolled in school and started eighth grade in September, Veronica J Joyner said, reporting that his teachers praised him as “very capable, very easy-going and hard-working.”

The injured student is an 11th grader who she says has “a smile that would light up the room.”

Ms. Joyner told the investigator:: “The two young men are very respectable and good students.

“The school and the school family are very sad that this continues to happen to young people.”

He called the deaths “a travesty.”

The shooting occurred around 3:30 p.m. in the Crescentville section of the city; Ballard was found on the sidewalk, Frezghi on a front porch, and Fleming just inside the front door, the investigator informed. The victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

After the fourth student arrived at the hospital, police found a black Ford Edge believed to have been involved and said they believed the 15- and 16-year-olds subsequently arrested had just dropped off the teenager who suffered a gunshot wound in the stomach.

Ms. Joyner told the investigator that the school of 1,000 students has expanded its staff of grief counselors from two to four six this year amid the plague of Philadelphia shootings; Prior to Friday’s incident, 57 children under the age of 18 had been shot so far in 2023 in the city, eight of them fatal, the newspaper reported.

“We have about two pages typed from students who have lost their mother, father, brothers, sisters” or other family members in shootings, Ms Joyner said, adding: “Schools now have to deal with a lot of things that they didn’t ”. I didn’t confront when I went to school.”

the independent He has contacted the Philadelphia police.