3 women shot dead on Instagram post part of disturbing trend in gun violence in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia is seeing a disturbing trend of women and girls injured or killed in shootings. The police say three women were shot last weekend in an Instagram post.

Police are in the early stages of their investigation, but say they need help identifying several shooters who together fired more than 30 times.

“We heard like bang, bang, bang, bang,” said Brewerytown resident Jilian Leonard.

A blown car window was left in Brewerytown after police said three women were shot early Sunday morning, alarming neighbours.

“We were both sleeping. We jumped up, looked outside, and the cops were there right away,” Leonard said.

Officers say that before the shooting, the victims were at a house for an Airbnb party.

“We don’t believe this was sanctioned rental property at this point,” Philadelphia Police Capt. John Walker said.

Walker says one of the women posted a message on social media before the three left. Then, as they were returning to the Airbnb, still in an SUV, several shooters approached and fired more than 30 times.

“We have three young women sitting in hospital right now, dejected in a situation like this. ‘triggered,” Walker said when asked what the publication had to say.

The victims are 19, 20 and 21 years old. They are listed in stable condition.

CBS3 discovered they were also part of a troubling trend.

Growing numbers of women and girls have been shot in Philadelphia. Since the beginning of the year, more than 180 women and girls have been shot dead in the city. This is more than double during the same period in 2018 and 2019.

What explains this strong increase?

“We don’t know. We know Saturday night we had a lot of female victims,” ​​Walker said. “We are working to figure it out with our investigative team as well as our research teams that we have with the health department and the Office of Violence Prevention.”

No weapons were recovered and no arrests were made.