Youth hailed as hero in icy pond rescue dies in shooting

A teenager hailed as a hero in the Philadelphia area last year for helping rescue three children from a frozen pond has died in an accidental shooting believed to have occurred over the weekend, officials said. Stated.

Police in Upper Darby said 17-year-old Anthony Alexander of Collingdale Borough was fatally shot when a group of teenagers and young adults were in his Drexel Hill apartment around 5pm on Sunday. That’s what I mean. Surrendering the next day, the 16-year-old Collingdale youth was found guilty of third-degree murder, manslaughter, weapons, and other charges in Delaware County instead of his 10% of the $750,000 bail. was detained.

In an affidavit of probable cause, investigators said one of the two handguns fired when the teenager was live-streaming on Instagram while the teenager was “twirling” two handguns in his apartment. and told police that he had attacked Alexander. His attorney declined to comment on Wednesday’s charges.

“He was a beautiful child, but this is still not real to me,” Alexander’s stepmother, Ava Alexander, told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday. , was always coming to someone’s defense.”

On the afternoon of February 21, 2022, 16-year-old Anthony Alexander was in Collingdale Park when he heard two girls and a boy scream as they fell from the ice. He used his stick to try to save them before going into the water and rescuing them himself. He was later commended along with the Borough Council-backed police.

Alexander was scheduled to receive the Citizen Honor Award in the Young Heroes category of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society next month. “He will continue to receive a solo Young Hero Award,” said Kathleen Blomquist, the organization’s executive director of communications, at the awards ceremony in Washington on March 25.

The family said Alexander was looking forward to the trip and hoped to meet the Medal of Honor winner who would have worn the medal around his neck. I loved him and wanted to join the Marine Corps.

“We have to do something about gun violence,” Eva Alexander told the newspaper through tears.