Two people have been killed and nine injured in a Memorial Day mass shooting in Philadelphia.
Amya Devlin, 23, and Mikhail Bowers, 21, were shot dead during the incident in the city’s largest municipal park on Monday evening, with a 15 year-old the youngest of the injured victims. The names of the injured has not yet been revealed.
Cops believe at least three shooters were involved in the incident, after finding three different types of bullet casings, but have yet to make any arrests as of Tuesday morning.
Follow the latest news about the Fairmount Park shooting on our live blog, here.
Gunfire rang out at about 10.27 p.m. on Monday as a large group of young people gathered near Lemon Hill Drive and Sedgley Drive at Fairmount Park, the Philadelphia Police Department said.
Fairmount had been filled with families and community members enjoying Memorial Day cookouts before the late evening shooting. ABC 6 News reported that at one point at least 200 juveniles were at the scene while a witness told FOX 29 that there were up to 1,000 people at a “cookout” when gunfire erupted.
“Everybody scared,” one person told reporters. “I see two people drop, that’s it,” a second witness added.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said that weapons used in the killings had not yet been found, but suggested that a “switch” was involved. A switch is a small device that can be used to modify handguns and rifles to fire like machine guns.
“You cannot fire that many levels of bullets with such speed and time without it having some type of switch on it,” he told reporters.
Bethel also noted the significance of the tragedy unfolding on a day to remember those who had lost their lives.
“This is significant,” Bethel told reporters earlier Tuesday. “This is Memorial Day, where we honor those who gave their lives in war.”
All nine of the survivors have been treated and are in “stable condition,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker told reporters Tuesday as she condemned the “heinous” and “inhumane” acts of violence.
“We will not be held hostage by anyone who decides that they want to get assault-like weapons, guns with switches,” she said.
“I hear the law enforcement officials our police department, they're listening to video, and they're listening to the shots being fired, and it's clear, you know, that it's not a handgun. This is not normal, and we won't normalize the behavior here in our city.”
Fairmount Park was closed down late Monday night and remained shut with investigators on the scene Tuesday.
Investigators continue to comb through social media and police are looking at whether there is a connection with a crashed Hyundai vehicle found near the scene.
