Three people were killed and eleven others injured Saturday evening during a shooting in a crowded street in Philadelphia (northeast of the United States), announces the local police. “Fourteen people, to our knowledge, were hit by gunfire and hospitalized, details with the journalists an inspector of the police of Philadelphia, DF Pace. Three of these people, two men and one woman, were pronounced dead following arriving at hospitals with multiple gunshot wounds.
The shooting happened around 11:30 p.m. on South Street, the epicenter of Philadelphia’s nightlife, between 2nd and 4th streets, according to information from Philadelphia Inquirer. The police speak of several shooters, and would have recovered two semi-automatic handguns, without managing to make an arrest. Also according to the local daily, an agent would have fired on one of the shooters, who would have fled by abandoning his weapon. Among the dead, whose identity has not been released, are a 25-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman.
The police hope to use the images from the surveillance cameras of the many businesses on the street. The excerpt from a recording was published by the local daily. We see a dense crowd strolling around, then suddenly start to run.
Saturday evening, South Street was very busy, like every weekend. Sixty bars and restaurants line the 14 blocks that stretch between the Delaware River and South Broad Street. Near the scene of the shooting stand two temples of local life. The Theater of the Living Arts, which hosted a Saturday night concert by death metal band Dying Fetus, and Jim’s restaurant, whose specialty is cheesesteak, a grilled beef sandwich with melted cheese.
Week-end de Gay Pride
The attack coincided with the exit of the concert. One of the spectators Eric Rosso, 34, gave his testimony to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He claims to have heard detonations as he left the room, then saw bullets ricochet on the sidewalk and cause sparks. The crowd then started running. “It was like watching the scene from afar, in slow motion”he says, before confiding that he had already thought that as an American, he would one day face a shooting.
According to the police spokesperson, there was an increased law enforcement presence in central Philadelphia this weekend due to LGBTI+ Pride March festivities. This year, the city celebrates 50 years of its first Gay Pride. South Street is also very close to Gayborood, the gay district.
This shooting is the third to hit the country in the space of a few days and comes as the controversy over the sale of arms resurfaces in the United States. Last week, four people died in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Uvalde, Texas paid the heaviest price: this Texas town lost 21 people, including 19 children.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Congress to find a way to curb assault rifle sales and lambasted Republican lawmakers who oppose it, lamenting that “too many everyday places (have) become places of killing, battlefields”. “Over the past 20 years, more school children have died from firearms than the total number of police and soldiers who have died on duty.he added. Think regarding it.”
More information to come…
