Police said one of the shooters was seen running south on American Street between 2nd and 3rd streets.
At least 14 people were shot, three of them killed, when gunmen fired into a crowd on South Street in Philadelphia late Saturday night.
The shooting happened on South Street between 2rd and 3rd streets shortly before midnight. Police said officers heard multiple gunshots, then saw several gunmen firing into a crowd of people, NBC10 Philadelphia reports.
An officer fired his gun at one of the shooters, Philadelphia Police Inspector D. F. Pace said. It is not known if the suspect was struck, however they did drop their gun and flee.
The officer was "within 10 to 15 yards of the shooter, watching this person shoot into the crowd" when he decided to engage, Pace said.
Police said one of the shooters was seen running south on American Street between 2nd and 3rd streets.
Police said at least 14 people were struck by the barrage of gunfire. Three of them, two men and a woman, were shot multiple times and died at the hospital.
"There were hundreds of individuals just enjoying South Street, as they do every weekend, when the shooting broke out," Pace said.
Pace said two guns were found at the scene, one of them with an extended magazine.
"I want to emphasize that South Street is manned by numerous police officers," Pace said. "This is standard deployment for Friday and Saturday night - weekends - and especially during the summer months."
The search for the gunmen continued early Sunday morning, police said.
Philadelphia police said a separate shooting incident happened nearby around 11 p.m. Officers found 13 bullet casings at 4th and Bainbridge, a couple blocks away. Pace said investigators are looking into whether there's a connection in the two shootings.
Officers had the area between 2nd and 5th streets on South Street blocked off overnight.
Lately, there appears to be an increase in the cases of mass shootings in the US.
For instance, four people were killed in a shooting Wednesday evening in a medical building on a hospital campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police said.
The gunman was also killed, of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.
At least 19 children and two adults were killed when an 18-year-old gunman shot them at a Texas elementary school on May 24, 2022.