By Sarai Flores
The scene of the shooting, 2036 N. Carlisle St.,which left two men in the hospital. | SARAI FLORES TTN
Philadelphia police responded to a shooting outside an apartment building less than a block off Main Campus Tuesday evening, which left two non-Temple-affiliated males in the hospital.
A 22-year-old male was found lying in the foyer of an apartment at 2036 N. Carlisle St. with a gunshot wound to his chest and was taken to Temple University Hospital in critical condition. Temple police said the man was visiting from New York.
A police spokesperson said that while officers were at the scene, they noticed a male driving away in a van. After briefly pursuing the vehicle, police reported that it crashed into a wall on North College Ave., near Girard College. The 19-year-old male driver was transported to Hahnemann University Hospital with injuries related to the incident.
The 19-year-old male’s involvement in the shooting is still being investigated and he had not been formally charged as of Wednesday night.
According to police, the 22-year-old male was in critical condition as of Wednesday and had yet to be questioned. No charges have been made to anyone involved in the shooting and police said they believe there were several males involved in the shooting.
Although the incident occurred around 9:38 p.m., Temple students were issued a TU Alert at 11 p.m. that night.
“The problem was we had a problem with our computer dispatching system,” said Charlie Leone, executive director of campus safety services.“It went down and so we didn’t get the information right away but Philly [police] was there very fast.”
The shooting came four months after a March 21 incident just off Main Campus where a female student was attacked and hit in the face with a brick by a group of teenage girls. Many students criticized the university for not immediately notifying them of the incident.
University officials initially said the incident wasn’t reported because it was off-campus, therefore not in their jurisdiction, and they weren’t notified about it by Philadelphia police until hours after. Leone said Tuesday’s incident showed a reformed communication policy since the attacks in March.
“Talking with the student population… they wanted more information. So we saw something like this and we wanted to make sure we had put the information out so they know what happened,” Leone said. “We’re trying to do better and we’re trying to improve.”
However, Inella Ray, a senior economics major, believes Temple police still have room to improve with communicating.
“I guess I come from a biased point of view because I grew up in the inner city, but I don’t rely on Temple police for safety,” Ray said. “I don’t think Temple police do a good enough of a job. We end up finding out about stuff very late. They need to do a better job communicating.”
Temple police have stated that they are continuing to heavily patrol the area.
Sarai Flores can be reached at sarai.abisag.flores@temple.edu or on Twitter @saraiaflores.
