A teenage employee at a Philadelphia Chick-fil-A was hospitalized after a dispute with a delivery driver allegedly escalated into gunfire.
Police told local news outlets Monday evening that officers responded to calls of a shooting at a location of the fried chicken chain in northeast Philadelphia. Details on the incident are still emerging, but the victim is reportedly in stable condition and the suspect is still at large.
Philadelphia Police Department officers arrived at the Chick-fil-A in the city’s Lawncrest neighborhood at around 8:30 p.m. to find the 17-year-old victim shot in the left leg, reports CBS3.
Philadelphia Chief Inspector Scott Small told news outlets that the employee had a dispute with a delivery driver before the shooting.
“The argument was the driver of the delivery vehicle got in an argument because he believed he was supposed to receive more food for the delivery and that turned into an argument with several of the employees,” Small said, according to CBS3. “And that escalated into a shooting,”
The driver argued that he should have received more food than he had been given, and fired one shot that hit the teen in the knee, reports local Fox affiliate WTXF-TV.
Police told ABC affiliate WPVI-TV that the dispute with the driver was over a milkshake order. The station reports that it’s not clear where exactly the shots were fired, but its helicopter found the restaurant’s parking lot sealed off with crime tape.
The unnamed victim was taken to Einstein Medical Center and is in stable condition, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. The suspect was picking up an order through an online delivery platform and demanded another item that was not part of the order, Small told the paper. The suspect fired a single shot from a handgun and fled in his vehicle, the Inquirer reports.
Police have not publicly identified the driver, but believe he has at least one tattoo on his neck and was driving a “newer model white Mercedes,” according to WTXF-TV.
Police have not made any arrests.
However, Small told the Inquirer that police have plenty to go on. He said several other employees were present for the incident, which he said was also caught on the store’s surveillance video. Because the suspect was picking up an order, he is in Chick-fil-A’s computer system. The license plate of the car driven by the suspect was also caught on video, the paper reports.
Philadelphia saw over 500 homicides in 2021, setting a new record for the city. According to Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, at least 2,300 people were shooting victims last year.
Those include the fatal shooting of Samir Jefferson, a 14-year-old Philadelphia teen. Another man was shot dead while working on a video about gun violence.
More recently, police said a man was shot and killed Sunday night after taking care of his sick mother.
Newsweek reached out to the Philadelphia Police Department for comment.
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