September 27, 2022
In response to the shooting outside Roxborough High School, leaving one student dead and five injured while playing football, PFT President Jerry Jordan issued the following statement:
PHILADELPHIA—"I am horrified, heartbroken, and enraged by the shooting of five students this afternoon outside Roxborough High School at a football scrimmage. I am gutted to learn that one child--just fourteen years old--has died. This shooting should shake us all to our core: five teenagers playing football after school--on the purported safety of school grounds, only to have their lives, and the lives of those they know and love, forever altered.
"It should be unfathomable to think a tragedy like this can unfold at our schools, or anywhere in our city, but the devastation wrought by gun violence remains cruel and relentless. My thoughts are, of course, with every single person impacted by today's horror including the entire communities of all impacted schools including those we know at this time: Roxborough, Northeast, Saul, and Boys' Latin Charter. My heart breaks for the loved ones of the child murdered, and for those injured and their loved ones. But my thoughts mean nothing, because society, specifically the state legislature, refuses to allow Philadelphia the autonomy to create the gun laws that we need.
"Tonight, a family goes to sleep without their beloved fourteen year old, while four other families endure the trauma of their child being hospitalized with gunshot wounds. This is a reality that no one should have to endure, but in fact, it is all too common. We cannot, and will not, become numb to this level of loss, of pain, of horror.
"Our collective rage and call to action must not wane, because we must continue to shine a light on the crisis of gun violence and we must continue to work towards real, meaningful solutions."
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