Philadelphia: Just hours after six people were killed in a mass shooting incident in Chicago during Fourth of July celebrations, two police officers were shot at in Philadelphia in a festival marking the American Independence Day, according to media reports.
Late Monday night, the city’s office of emergency management said there was a “security incident” on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, reports Xinhua news agency.
The office urged the public to follow safety instructions and avoid the area.
The officers were shot near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
A manhunt is reportedly underway.
A law enforcement source told CNN that a Philadelphia Highway Patrol officer suffered a graze wound to the head and a Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputy suffered a gunshot injury to the shoulder.
They were taken to Jefferson University Hospital in stable condition and were evaluated in the emergency room, a hospital spokesperson told CNN.
A video of the incident doing the rounds on social media shows large crowds of people running along Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
A concert and fireworks celebrations were taking place.
Independence Day celebrations across the US had already been rattled by a shooting on Monday morning that claimed the lives of six people and wounded some 24 others at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park
The 22-year-old suspect, Robert “Bobby” Crimo III was named as a person of interest in the shooting and was taken into police custody in the evening after a massive manhunt in and around the suburb, an affluent community of about 30,000 on Chicago’s north shore.
Monday’s shootings came a week after President Joe Biden signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in nearly 30 years.
The legislation seeks to expand background check for prospective gun buyers, prevents abusive boyfriends and partners from buying guns and seeks to encourage states to pass laws to allow authorities and relatives to deny gun possession to people who are a danger to themselves and others.
There have been more than 21,800 deaths from gun violence and 296 mass shootings across the country since the beginning of this year, according to the latest data from the Gun Violence Archive.
–IANS
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