By Kanishka Singh
(Reuters) -Two Philadelphia police officers were shot near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway late on Monday as thousands of people celebrated a Fourth of July concert and fireworks show with the crowd scattering in panic when shots were fired.
The shooting came hours after a gunman on a rooftop opened fire on families waving flags and children riding bikes at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, where six people were killed and over 36 were wounded.
Both officers in Philadelphia were released from hospital after suffering non-life threatening injuries, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said. Police were searching for the shooter.
Video from the incident showed hundreds of people running from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway after shots were fired.
Kenney said his administration was “pleading with lawmakers” to stop the “flow of guns into our city.”
“Our traditions cannot and will not be ruined by the scourge of gun violence,” he added.
The gunfire broke out late on Monday near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the final day of a festival with a large number of people watching a fireworks show after a concert.
“There is a security incident on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway,” emergency authorities said, referring to the shooting.
Police instructed people in surrounding buildings to shelter in place.
“I didn’t hear the shots, but the cops were like, ‘Run, run, run,'” one woman told an NBC affiliate.
One officer sustained a graze wound to the head and the other a gunshot wound to the right shoulder, according to NBC10.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kim Coghill and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
