Five people were shot, one of them fatally, in an overnight shooting at an apartment complex in Philadelphia, in an attack that left investigators working through the night to piece together what happened. The scale of the violence, with several victims struck in a single incident, quickly drew a heavy police response to the residential complex.
The first alert came in the early hours of the morning. According to police, officers were called to a location inside the complex at 500 East Hill Creek shortly after ten past midnight, after a 911 caller reported that juveniles had been shot, prompting officers to rush to the scene as the situation was still unfolding.
When officers arrived, they found two young victims. According to police, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old male had been shot, one wounded in the arm and the other in the leg, and both were taken to Temple hospital for treatment as emergency crews worked at the complex.
One of those caught up in the shooting did not survive. According to police, a male was pronounced dead at the scene, and because he had not been identified he was listed as a John Doe, with officers saying only that he had no known age and appeared to be an adult.
As the picture became clearer, the full toll of the shooting came into focus. According to police, a total of five people had been shot in the incident, made up of the two juveniles, two others of unknown age who appeared to be adults, and one female, in a burst of gunfire that struck multiple people at once.
Investigators began looking at what had drawn people to the location. According to police, the shooting appeared to have stemmed from some kind of party or gathering at the complex, and officers recovered evidence pointing to a heavy volume of fire, including around 17 spent cartridge casings and at least one projectile, though no vehicles or houses appeared to have been struck.
The attack also echoed an incident from just a day earlier. According to police, a nearly identical shooting had taken place the previous night at almost the same spot, where a large crowd had again gathered for a party before officers dispersed it and later heard gunfire, finding a vehicle that had been struck. Investigators said it was not yet clear whether the two shootings were connected, and by the morning no arrests had been reported, the victims had not been identified and the motive remained unknown.