{"id":216018,"date":"2026-06-11T00:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/216018\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T00:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:18:09","slug":"justice-for-billy-vigil-protest-to-be-held-for-penn-state-student-shot-dead-near-south-philadelphia-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/216018\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Justice for Billy’: Vigil, protest to be held for Penn State student shot dead near South Philadelphia home"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — A vigil and protest will be held in honor of a Penn State University student who was fatally shot<\/a> about one block from his South Philadelphia home.<\/p>\n

The video featured is from a previous report.<\/p>\n

William “Billy” Schmidt, 22, was shot in the chest at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday in an apparent robbery, according to Philadelphia police.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/p>\n

William “Billy” Schmidt, 22, was shot in the chest Saturday in an apparent robbery, according to Philadelphia police.<\/p>\n

No arrests have been made, police said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Billy Schmidt had been watching the NBA Finals game with his friends at a bar and was walking home when he was shot, his father, Bill Schmidt, told Action News.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Memorial grows for Penn State student fatally shot in South Philadelphia<\/a><\/p>\n

“He was a really good person who cared about everybody,” Bill Schmidt said. “… For him to get shot like that is a travesty.”<\/p>\n

The vigil and protest, called “Justice for Billy,” will be held Thursday evening in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

“We are taking our streets back. … we won’t stop until our community is safe,” the flyer said.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old was studying digital journalism and media at Penn State World Campus, according to the university.<\/p>\n

“We are heartbroken over the tragic death of William Schmidt, and we share our\u00a0deepest\u00a0condolences with his family and friends,” a Penn State spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Jessica Gorman contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ABC News Internet Ventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA — A vigil and protest will be held in honor of a Penn State University student who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94543,6780,856,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-216018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-94543","tag-abc-news","tag-national","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}