At least nine people were injured in a mass shooting in Philadelphia after multiple gunmen fired at least 40 shots at a crowd gathered on a sidewalk outside a bar late Saturday night, authorities said. The assailants fled the scene in the Kensington section of the city in a vehicle and remained at large. Authorities said that seven of the victims were in stable condition and two were critical.

Deputy Commissioner John Stanford said the shooting unfolded around 10:45 p.m.  A group of people were on the sidewalk outside the bar when multiple gunmen exited a black vehicle sitting in the middle of East Allegheny Avenue, near Kensington Avenue, and opened fire on the crowd without warning.  Stanford said investigators don’t yet know who was targeted or a motive for the attack, saying: “At this point in time, it just looks like these individuals may have spotted someone they wanted to shoot at, exited the vehicle and just began firing.”  He added that the shooting occurred despite a heavy police presence already in the area, and that officers heard the gunfire and rushed to help the men and women injured as the shooters ran back to the dark vehicle and fled. He said investigators recovered at least 40 pieces of ballistic evidence from the scene and plan to comb through surveillance video from businesses in the area in hopes of identifying the assailants.

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