April 22, 2015
Surveillance /SEPTA
A brawl broke out at the Spring Garden station of the Broad Street Line on Tuesday afternoon.
The SEPTA Transit Police Department is investigating a student brawl that took place on Tuesday afternoon at the Spring Garden station of the Broad Street Line.
During a review of surveillance footage from Tuesday afternoon, officials with SEPTA discovered that multiple students were involved in a chaotic attack on the station platform shortly after 3:15 p.m.
"Unfortunately, nobody reported the incident to police, so we found out through our surveillance feeds as we often look back at peak points when students might be leaving school," said Andrew Busch, SEPTA's public information manager.
Busch said the investigation is in its early stages, but that it appears that two students were targeted by several other aggressors. At one point, the video shows a student falling off the platform into the track area before jumping back up. On the far side, another subway car is seen arriving at the station while the fighting continues.
SEPTA has identified two of the victims as students at Benjamin Franklin High School. According to Busch, the Philadelphia School District is assisting with the investigation to further identify those involved in the brawl.
"This is an opportunity for us to stress to people that if something like this happens, it is very important that we are contacted so that we can intervene as quickly as possible," Busch said.
So far, no charges have been filed in connection with the brawl. SEPTA plans to review surveillance footage from the subway car that several of the students boarded following the attack.
"It's a dramatic and somewhat horrifying scene," Busch said, "so in the interest of discouraging things like this, we ask witnesses to reach out to us when issues like this arise."
