Gunfire follows Strawberry Mansion graduation

Minutes after the music from Strawberry Mansion High School's commencement died down today, a fight between two cliques broke out and an 18-year-old graduate was shot in the back.

The shooting happened just after 4:15 p.m. down Broad Street from Temple University's Liacouras Center, where Strawberry Mansion's graduation ceremony was held.

"It's absolutely shocking and deplorable," Philadelphia Police Capt. Laurence Nodiff said of the shooting, which destroyed the joyous mood of the North Philadelphia high school's celebration, just one in a series of graduations around the region this week.

The new graduate, identified by his parents as Khiry Caldwell, was in stable condition at Temple University Hospital tonight.

Amin and Kathy Caldwell said their son, who suffered a fractured rib and a bruised lung, was alert and doing fine. He was even laughing.

The couple said their son was a bystander when the shots were fired.

The brawl and ensuing gunplay began not long after students, clutching diplomas and taking photos, spilled onto Broad after the ceremony ended about 4 p.m.

Two groups of five or six students each started fighting at the Wendy's restaurant in a cluster of shops next to the Liacouras Center, police said. Temple police rushed to break up the fistfight, which moved south to Cecil B. Moore Avenue. At least two shots were fired, and the 18-year-old was struck in the back, police said. Temple police drove him north to the hospital.

Several hundred people, graduates and guests, were in the area at the time, Nodiff said.

"We believe it's the result of an ongoing dispute between two factions of males who attend Strawberry Mansion High School," he said. "Specifically what, we're not sure."

James Golden, the Philadelphia School District's chief safety executive, said school officials had no inkling there would be trouble.

"It would have been something on our radar for which we would have made plans," he said.

Police were questioning at least five people apprehended at the scene.

The bullets came from a .22-caliber handgun, said Sgt. Ray Evers of the Public Affairs Unit. Authorities had not recovered it, but were preparing to search the subway platform at the Cecil B. Moore stop.

Gun violence is not new to Strawberry Mansion, a comprehensive high school of about 700 students at 31st Street and Ridge Avenue.

In 2004, 16-year-old Jalil Speaks was shot to death a block from the school because, police said, he owed someone $50. Three other students were injured in the shoot-out just after school let out.

The school, which reports a high absence and student turnover rate, reported 10 serious violent incidents in 2005-06, the last year for which statistics are available. The number of violent incidents at Strawberry Mansion has decreased since a spike to 64 in 2002-03.

Enrollment, however, has also decreased dramatically since then, in a district push for smaller high schools.