A few days after the misfortune occurred in a Texas school, a new shooting was recorded in the United States that left three dead and 11 others injured after armed men opened fire on a crowded Philadelphia street on Saturday night.
“We know that fourteen people were shot and taken to hospitals,” police inspector DF Pace reported.
“Three of those people, two men and one woman, were pronounced dead after arriving at hospitals with multiple gunshot wounds,” he added.
Pace said officers on the scene “observed multiple active shooters opening fire on people” in Philadelphia’s bustling South Street area.
He stressed that “numerous” agents were already there when the first shots were heard. Pace maintained that such surveillance is common for that area on summer weekend nights.
An officer fired at one of the shooters, who dropped his gun and fled, though it was unclear if he was hit, Pace added.
According to local media, there were no arrests.
Pace said two semi-automatic weapons and a high-capacity magazine were found at the scene. Police will review surveillance camera footage from stores in the area that were closed Saturday night.
A witness, Joe Smith, 23, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that, ever since he heard the first shots, he was flooded with memories of the recent shootings in the United States.
“When it started, I didn’t think it was going to stop,” he said. “There were hoarse screams,” he added, “I just heard screams.
Another witness, Eric Walsh, described to the Philadelphia Inquirer people fleeing the shooting “with blood splattered on their white sneakers and skinned knees and elbows.”
According to the newspaper, another person was shot and killed not far from the scene of the shooting about two hours later, but police said the two incidents are unrelated.
In addition to the massacre at the school in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers, there were other shootings.
On May 14, a white man who described himself as “racist” and “anti-Semitic” killed ten black people in a supermarket in Buffalo, on the US-Canadian border.
Two days later, a man, motivated by hatred for Taiwan and its people, according to police, killed one person and wounded five at a California church frequented by the Taiwanese-American community.
On Thursday, a shooting at a cemetery in Wisconsin left five wounded during the burial of a man killed by police in late May.
And the day before, four people were killed in a Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital when a man opened fire. The attacker was targeting the doctor who had operated on his back and whom he blamed for his pain, according to police.