Three people were killed and 11 others were injured in a mass shooting in Philadelphia late Saturday after a gunman opened fire on a large crowd.
Police said several shots were heard shortly before midnight in the bustling center of South Street with reports of “several armed men” at the scene.
A police officer responded with a shot in the direction of a suspected shooter, Philadelphia Police Inspector DF Pace told NBC Philadelphia. A suspect dropped his firearm and fled the scene, authorities said.
Fourteen people were caught in the crossfire. Two men and a woman later died at the hospital from gunshot wounds.
Officials did not reveal the identity of the deceased or injured, but according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the victims was a 25-year-old man and another was a 22-year-old woman.
Blood is seen at the site of a fatal shooting on the night of South Street in Philadelphia, Sunday, June 5, 2022.
(Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Officers were still searching for the suspected gunmen on Sunday morning after the area between 2nd and 5th streets was closed overnight.
Inspector Pace said police found two cannons at the scene, one of which had an extended magazine and “numerous” shell casings.
“You can imagine hundreds of people just enjoying South Street, like every weekend when this shooting broke out,” Inspector Pace told ABC.
South Street is a bustling area with bars, restaurants and clubs in downtown Philadelphia and has a regular police presence on weekends, especially during the summer months, authorities said.
The South Street incident was the second shooting in the area on Saturday. Police also responded to a shooting at about 11 pm at several intersections, in which 13 shell casings were found.
Inspector Pace told a news conference Sunday that officials were investigating whether the two incidents were related.
The United States has seen 240 mass shootings so far in 2022, according to The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that tracks mass shootings. Mass shooting is defined by a non-profit organization as an incident involving four or more people shot or killed simultaneously.
This article is being updated
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