Philadelphia (AP) – There is no excuse for violence like the Memorial Day shooting in a Philadelphia park which killed two people and injured nine, the city mayor announced on Tuesday.
Two young adults died after the shooting on Monday evening in Fairmount Park, said police commissioner Kevin Bethel on Tuesday. Those injured in the Memorial day The shots were listed in a stable state, he said. Police said no arrest had been made.
“This is an act of odious violence that was inhuman. No respect for life,” said Mayor Cherèlle Parker at a press conference. “We will not be retained hostage by anyone who decides to want to obtain bellicose weapons in the form of assault.”
It was not yet clear what had led to the shooting or if those who were slaughtered were targeted, said the police commissioner. No weapon had been recovered, but the investigators found three weapons envelopes, said Bethel. According to the rapid shots heard in shared videos on social networks, he said that they could determine that a switch, which automates a semi-automatic weapon, had been used.
“It is the sound of war. When you have an automatic weapon that you can empty a magazine – a 20 clip magazine – in a few seconds,” said Bethel. “He is supposed to kill, create carnage and strike as many people as possible. And in this case, you see, he was able to do it. ”
Police identified people killed like Amya Devlin, 23, and Mikhail Bowers, 21. The injured include a boy of 15 and two girls, 16 and 17, announced the police. The other injured, four women and two men, go from 18 to 28 years.
Bethel did not know how many people were in the park at the time of the shooting, but noted that the estimates were in the hundreds. The shooting occurred despite the presence of officers in the park, said Bethel.
“We are trying to manage the crowd as they take place, but in the same Token, it is a challenge when individuals decide that they are going to shoot in a crowd,” said Bethel.
Officers were called upon to disperse the crowds earlier in the evening and met adults, who agreed to start closing, but Bethel said that it had taken time and that there were a large number of young people mixed in the crowd.
Bethel noticed concerns about the Roots Picnic Music Festival, which is scheduled for Fairmount Park next weekend, but explained that such an event with significant planning is different from an unplanned, as there was on Monday evening. From next weekend, Bethel said the ministry will stimulate deployments in the park and work to identify problems in advance, Bethel said.
