PHILADELPHIA – Four people were shot, one fatally, at a crowded city playground on Tuesday evening, bringing Philadelphia's death toll past 200 this year.
Two carloads of men drove across the grass to the basketball courts and started arguing with a group playing ball, police said. A fistfight broke out, followed by an exchange of gunfire.
Witnesses estimated that 60 to 70 people were at the playground in the city's Olney section at the time. Most took off running, they said.
"It might have been an argument over a girl. We're not sure," said Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, who went to the scene.
One of the three people wounded remained in critical condition late Wednesday, authorities said.
Two victims were found near the playground, while police found two more at Albert Einstein Medical Center, along with several men who had driven them there, officials said. They were being interviewed, but no arrests were immediately made.
The slain man became the city's 201st homicide of the year, Homicide Sgt. Robert Kuhlmeier said.
Johnson, as he has before, blamed the continuing violence on lax gun laws, poverty, unemployment and witnesses who refuse to help police make arrests.
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