PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An on-duty sanitation worker was shot dead Friday morning in the city’s Mayfair section
Police say 35-year-old Ikeem Johnson was shot multiple times around 10:33 a.m. on the 3300 block of Tudor Street at Rowland Avenue, near Lincoln High School.
The high school was placed on lockdown for about 30 minutes as a precaution.
Johnson was traveling southbound in a sanitation truck when a man wearing a blue “dickey-style type outfit” and surgical mask approached the passenger side of the truck, causing the vehicle to stop, said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
Johnson immediately exited the vehicle, and the man wearing the mask shot him multiple times, according to police, and the suspect then fled the scene. Johnson was pronounced dead minutes later.
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“We don't know all the facts at this point,” Mayor Jim Kenney said, speaking near the scene on Friday. “If people don't have access to firearms, whatever beef they may have had, or whatever the situation is, would have been handled in a different way. But this is the world we're living in now, where these kinds of situations wind up in tragic death.”
The relationship between the victim and suspect is not known, but Outlaw said the shooting did not appear to be a random act.
“All he did was wake up this morning and go to work for the citizens of Philadelphia,” said City Managing Director Tumar Alexander.
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Citing safety concerns for sanitation workers operating in public, Alexander said the city will work with the Philadelphia Police Department to make sure people feel protected where they work.
Grief services will be provided for those affected by Johnson's death.
“We need to be clear, there was folks who were affected who know him, who worked with him, so we need to make sure that we're providing services for them – give them space to grieve, give them a space to express their feelings,” Alexander said.
So far, police have made no arrests, and investigators have note retrieved any weapons.