Philadelphia’s Athletic Recreation Center, which had been touted as the “safest place in the neighborhood,” was the site of a fatal shooting of a boy, 17, during a basketball game on Wednesday, says the Philadelphia Inquirer. Police say he was shot by a young man from a rival group. Police, worried that violence might break out at a basketball tournament, had undercover officers in the crowd and were quickly able to contain the violence, which left three others wounded, including a 22-year-old man believed to be the shooter.
For a half-century, the center – built on the grounds where the Philadelphia Athletics played their first games in the 1880s – was the neighborhood’s haven. “There’s a battle going on all across Philadelphia,” said a supervisor at the center. “There’s people trying to do right things getting caught up with people doing things wrong. They mingle, and it spins out of the moment.” A local block captain asked, “Why are all our kids dying? The [police] commissioner and D.A. say they have the answers, but our kids are still dying [] Somehow, somewhere, these kids are getting these guns.”
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