Two people were killed and four others injured in a shooting early Sunday at a suspected speakeasy in Philadelphia, police said.
The shooter or shooters appear to have fired from the street into a residence on Myrtlewood Street, where Philadelphia police responded to a report of a person with a gun around 12:50 a.m. Sunday, the department said in a news release.
The deadly gunfire joins a list of nine mass shootings in the US in the two weeks since the new year began, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That includes the mass shooting at an Iowa high school earlier this month.
Both CNN and GVA define a mass shooting as a one that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.
In Sunday’s shooting, police found a 53-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the face, who was pronounced dead on scene. A 41-year-old man who was shot in the chest multiple times was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Four other victims, between the ages of 23 and 42, were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and are in stable condition, according to the release.
Police suspect the residence has been operating as a speakeasy, based on preliminary information, the department said in a release. They have yet to make any arrests in the ongoing investigation.
Mayor Cherelle Parker, who was sworn in earlier this month, recently declared a public safety emergency in Philadelphia.
The executive order referred to “aberrant and unacceptable levels of violent crime in Philadelphia,” citing more than 3,000 shootings in the city last year.
Parker called for an increase in the number of police officers on patrol and asked city officials to develop a plan to address the violence.
