A manhunt is underway after two people were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting in Philadelphia on Memorial Day.
Philadelphia Police Department believes there were at least three gunmen involved in the fatal incident in Fairmount Park after multiple shell casings were found. Officers continued to comb the scene on Tuesday but no arrests have been made as yet.
Shots erupted late on Monday evening after a large group of young people gathered for a cookout on the 800 block of Lemon Hill Drive. Many of the injured victims were teenagers while the two people killed were in their 20s.
Click here for the latest updates on the shooting.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said such violence could not be “normalized”. “This is a heinous act of violence that was inhumane,” Parker she told reporters at a press briefing Tuesday morning.
Here’s what we know so far.
What happened on Monday night?
Gunshots rang out at the popular Fairmount Park just before 10.30 p.m. on Monday, after hundreds had gathered in the park for cookouts to celebrate Memorial Day. Officers heard “rapid fire” gunfire and investigators believe a “switch” device was used to modify handguns so they would shoot like machine guns.
Two young adults were killed in the shooting while nine injured victims were taken to a local hospital.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said officers were already in the process of moving crowds out of the park when the shooting occurred. Fairmount is the largest municipal park in the city at more than 2,000 acres.
The police commissioner said crowds were an expected part of Memorial Day and Fairmount Park was a popular area most weekends, but Monday’s gathering was different in that it was a mix of adults and teenagers.
“We try to manage the crowds as they unfold, but at the same token, it is a challenge when individuals decide that they are going to fire into a crowd, that is something we can’t anticipate,” he said.
Where did the shooting occur?
What do we know about the victims?
Police identified the deceased as 23-year-old Amya Devlin and 21-year-old Mikhail Bowers. Both victims were pronounced dead upon being transported to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Nine others were injured in the shooting, including six teenagers aged between 15 and 19. Cops said all of the injured victims, who have not yet been publicly identified, were in a stable condition.
The victims were taken to several hospitals, CBS News reported, including Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Temple University Hospital, Lankenau Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
What have cops said about the investigation?
Police said the suspects were still at large and no weapons had been recovered.
Bethel again suggested that a “switch was involved,” adding: “You cannot fire that many levels of bullets with such speed and time without it having some type of switch on it.”
As police worked through the evening to determine how many firearms were used in the shooting, Mayor Parker said that investigators found three types of bullet casings at the scene, indicating there were three shooters.
“I was unfortunately informed that because they found three different types of casings,” she said. “We know that there were three shooters thus far. So it is not one.”
Bethel said police would continue to look through social media posts, both before and after the shooting, in an attempt to piece together what had happened.
