A man was found dead from a gunshot wound in the street near Blackburn Street and North Maple Avenue in Lansdowne on Tuesday night, prompting police to lock down a nearby apartment building where witnesses reported seeing suspects flee. One person was taken into custody inside the complex, but a second suspect remained at large as of Wednesday.
According to FOX 29 Philadelphia, the Lansdowne Police Department was called to the scene around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, after reports of a shooting near Blackburn Street and North Maple Avenue. Officers arrived to find a man suffering from a fatal gunshot wound in the street, and a loaded magazine was recovered at the scene. Delaware County officials confirmed the man died as a result of the shooting, per the station's report.
According to FOX 29 Philadelphia, suspects were seen fleeing into a nearby apartment after the gunfire, placing the shooting near the Marshall House Apartments. The complex became the focus of the police search.
Neighbors Say the Violence Doesn't Fit the Block
Thomas Bosell, who told FOX 29 he came from West Philadelphia, described the community around Blackburn and Maple as really quiet and said he was shocked by the violence. “You don't hear stuff like that around here,” he said, according to the station's account of the shooting's aftermath.
Police have not released the names or ages of either the victim or the suspects, nor have they shared a description of the second suspect still being sought. Police were still searching for that suspect, per the same outlet's reporting, though the search had not yielded an arrest as of the latest update.
Not the First Gunfire on Blackburn Avenue
The shooting is not the first instance of gunfire reported on the same street. A Blackburn Avenue dispatch involving a damaged vehicle was reported in August 2022; related Lansdowne Borough records are available online.
Broader crime data paints a mixed picture of the borough. An analysis of FBI statistics by NeighborhoodScout found Lansdowne's overall crime rate of 17 per 1,000 residents ranked higher than 88% of Pennsylvania communities as of October 2025, though its violent crime rate was 1.34 per 1,000. Property offenses account for the bulk of that overall figure, according to the same analysis.
Lansdowne Borough covers roughly 1.2 square miles and is home to about 11,107 residents, giving it a population density exceeding 9,400 people per square mile, per U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by Wikipedia. That density means gunfire at a street intersection is quickly heard by residents in nearby apartment complexes like Marshall House. Census data also shows the borough's median household income at $73,232 with an 11.8% poverty rate and includes data on housing tenure, according to Census Reporter.
What Comes Next for the Investigation
The investigation remains ongoing, and no charging or court-procedure details have been reported in the linked material from the Delaware County District Attorney's Office or the LLF Law Firm.
Lansdowne sits roughly six miles southwest of Center City Philadelphia, according to Wikipedia. A separate report about an incident in adjacent East Lansdowne is available here.
No arrests connected to the Blackburn Avenue shooting had been announced beyond the single person taken into custody inside the Marshall House building. The identity of the man killed has not been released.
