Catholic schools in center city Philadelphia were locked down Tuesday morning, Oct. 6, in response to the sighting of a man with a gun on the campus of nearby Philadelphia Community College.
Located in the 1700 block of Spring Garden Street, the college is several blocks away from John W. Hallahan Catholic High School for Girls to the west, and St. Joseph’s Preparatory School to the north, both of which were in shelter-in-place status as a precaution, along with the community college.
Catholic grade schools included in the lock down included Gesu School and St. Francis Xavier School. No one was permitted to enter or leave the buildings from around 11 a.m.
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Public schools, including Masterman High School directly across from the college, and day care programs in the area also were locked down as a precaution.
The community college students remained sheltered-in-place during the incident in which no injuries or gunfire were reported.
Just before noon, Philadelphia police apprehended a suspect in connection with the incident that occurred around 9:30 a.m. It reportedly stemmed from an argument between two students in which one pulled out a gun.
Nerves have been tense at all the colleges in the Philadelphia area since an Internet posting on Sunday threatened a shooting at one of them.
A young man shot and killed nine people and wounded nine others at an Oregon community college on Friday, Oct. 2. The gunman later died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot.
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