A 15-year-old Kensington High student was killed in a shooting in Northeast Philly this week

A 15-year-old boy was fatally shot in Northeast Philadelphia on Monday, adding to the concerning trend of young people whose lives have been claimed by gun violence.

Neko Rivera, a student at Kensington High School, was near the 6100 block of Algon Avenue, in Oxford Circle, when police say three gunmen chased him through an apartment complex and shot him 10 times. Responding officers rushed him to Einstein Medical Center, where he died a short time later.

No arrests have been made, and the motive for the shooting is unclear, said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.

One of Rivera’s relatives, overwhelmed with grief, declined an interview Tuesday. An Instagram account set up to honor his life, called NekoForever2023, showed the teen smiling and spending time with his family and enjoying the occasional Phillies game.

Rivera previously attended Samuel Fels High School, just blocks from where the shooting occurred, Vanore said, but had recently switched to Kensington High School.

Vanore said that earlier in the day Monday, multiple fights broke out at Fels, and the school briefly went on lockdown after people who didn’t attend the school attempted to get in. He said that there was no evidence that the fights had any connection to the shooting of Rivera but that investigators were searching for any common threads.

Rivera is the fifth child to be killed in a gun-related homicide this year in the city. He is one of 17 students in the Philadelphia School District to die by gun violence this academic year, and among 78 who have been shot.

In all, 27 children have been shot so far this year. Shootings of children in Philadelphia have steadily risen in recent years, though this year’s numbers represent a slight decline from last year’s pace. Last year, 217 children were shot, 30 fatally, the most of any year in recent memory, and a 44% increase over 2019, when 120 children were struck by gunfire.

Beyond those numbers are young lives cut short, with families left to grieve.

Other children who have died this year include: Semaj Richardson, 16, an aspiring rapper from North Philadelphia; Shaheed Saoud, 16, a student at Al-Asqsa Islamic Academy; Isaiah Odom, 17, a celebrated drummer for his church; and Anthony Pinckney, 14, an eighth grader who loved to dance.