At least nine people have been injured in a shooting that took place late Saturday night at a Philadelphia bar after several gunmen opened fire on the crowd on the sidewalk next to the establishment shortly before 11 p.m., police said.
Officers have reported that a black vehicle pulled up at the intersection of East Allegheny and Kensington avenues and fired about 40 shots before fleeing the scene.
A total of nine victims had to be transported to the hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Five of them were in critical condition while the remaining four are in stable condition, according to police.
However, it has not been clarified what happened before the shooting broke out, although officers believe it could be a specific target.
«At this point, it appears that these people may have seen someone they wanted to shoot, got out of the vehicle and started shooting at the group of people that were there. We don’t have much more than that in terms of motive,» said the deputy commissioner the Philadelphia Police Department. The men who fired the shots have not been arrested.
So far this year more than 2,000 people have been shot in the city, the highest number since 2015.