Three people have died and at least 11 other people were wounded in a shooting late Saturday night in Philadelphia, authorities said.
The Philadelphia Police Department responded to reports of a person with a gun in a large crowd.
Police Inspector D.F. Pace said during a news conference that shots were fired into the downtown crowd and an officer shot at a suspect. It is unclear if the suspect was hit.
Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner Danielle Outlaw identified the victims as 34-year-old Gregory Jackson, 27-year-old Alexis Quinn and a 22-year-old man.
Police did not release the 22-year-old man’s identity, but the American Federation of Teachers identified him as Kris Minners, a resident advisor for 6th and 2nd grade boys at Girard College.
Officers patrolling the popular South Street entertainment district heard the shots and saw what appeared to be multiple gunmen, Philadelphia Police Inspector D.F. Pace said at a briefing.
“An officer engaged the shooter,” Pace said. “As a result of that brave officer – and again we are uncertain whether (the suspect) was struck or not – but the officer was able to get that individual to drop his gun and flee.”
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said two fatalities were innocent bystanders. She said police believe one of the men who died was involved in a physical altercation with another man when “they began firing at one another, with both being struck, one fatally.”
Gregory “Japan” Jackson, 34, as two of those who lost their lives when violence erupted in the entertainment district Sunday evening.
Teacher’s union AFT Pennsylvania identified Kristopher Minners, 22, as the third victim.
Police said two of the people, including Quinn, were “innocent bystanders.” One of the men killed is believed to be involved in the incident.
Minners had been celebrating his birthday with family and friends on South Street prior to the shooting, according to Girard College’s Interim President James Turner.
“People are afraid to let their kids out of the house,” Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia said in an interview. But he added that there was little he could say to reassure frightened or grieving residents.
“Words are hard,” Mr. Kenney said. “Words these days have become somewhat meaningless.”
As of Sunday evening, the police in his city had announced no arrests. Earlier in the day, spent shell casings still littered South Street as investigators searched for more clues. Dots on the ground of what looked like blood, along with blue tape on storefronts that marked bullet holes, made the area, one of the most popular nightlife spots in Philadelphia, resemble a war zone.
Similarly, shooting broke out after midnight near a bar in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after midnight on Saturday, killing three and wounding 14, according to police.
In yet another shooting in the early hours of Sunday, three people were killed and two were wounded in Saginaw, Michigan, WEYI television reported, citing a police statement. Unlike the other two cases, which affected bystanders unconnected to the shooting, all five of the people in the Michigan shooting were involved in the incident, police said.
No suspects were reported in custody as of Sunday evening in any of the shootings.
The violence struck as communities in three other cities are still grieving from massacres that killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; 21 victims at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; and four people at a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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