A safety officer for the School District of Philadelphia is in critical but stable condition after being shot during a road rage incident near Penn’s Landing early Sunday morning, police said.
The officer, 68, whose name has not been released, was on duty and driving a school district patrol vehicle on the 300 block of North Christopher Columbus Boulevard just before 2 a.m., when a man in a white Hyundai SUV opened fire, police said. He was shot in the face, arm and body, and then crashed his vehicle into a tree. He was transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
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The shooting stemmed from a road rage incident on Interstate 95 involving the Hyundai and a black Dodge pickup truck, police said. A man in the Hyundai pointed a gun at the pickup truck driver, who then exited the highway onto Columbus Boulevard and flagged down the school safety officer to report the incident.
Investigators believe the school safety officer attempted to intervene when the man in the Hyundai began shooting, Philadelphia Police Inspector DF Pace told NBC10.
“Based on what we have so far, it does appear the incidents are connected, and it does appear the shooting was perpetrated by this person that originally pointed a gun at the driver,” Pace said.
Police said there were “two offender males” in the Hyundai.
The school safety officer had been working at the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, which has been serving as a shelter for people displaced by an apartment building fire. He was not armed, the Inquirer reported. He has worked in district security for nearly 20 years, and is a retired Philadelphia police officer.
No arrests have been made, but four 9 mm shell casings were found at the scene.