Man shot in Dickinson Square Park basketball court in middle of the day

Dickinson Square Park, normally a scene filled with people exercising and children playing, became the center of a crime scene Thursday afternoon as shots rung out at the centrally located basketball court around 2 p.m.

Philadelphia Police were seen roping off the area of the park near Moyamensing Avenue and Morris Street and placing evidence placards on the ground where bullet casings lay strewn. Multiple police and news helicopters caused quite a stir as they hovered over the park. Philly.com lists the victim, who was shot once in the right leg, as a “25-year-old Hispanic man.” He was taken and treated at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Suspects in the shooting apparently fled on foot. The police, as of 3:30 p.m., say the investigation was still ongoing and no arrests had been made. According to neighbors who talked to police on the scene, the two suspects were later apprehended.

The shooting comes just days after multiple marked (and unmarked) Philly Police vehicles raced past Dickinson Square Park and swarmed a Whitman home in what turned out to be an apparent hoax. SWAT Teams were also called to the 2300 block of S. American Street after they received a call that an armed boy had barricaded himself in to his house and was holding his family hostage.

From 6 ABC:

However that wasn’t the case at all. The 16-year-old boy was just playing video games.

Investigators think the people he was playing with online, used the swatting prank to call in the hoax.

It turns out that someone hacked in to the boy’s XBOX and used his Internet connection to incite the action from authorities – a prank called “Swatting.” Thankfully, it was only a prank.

The shooting at Dickinson Square Park in broad daylight, however, was nothing of the sort.

– James Jennings is the founder of the blog Pennsporter — a site dedicated to exploring the neighborhood  from Washington to Snyder, the Delaware to Fourth.