PHILADELPHIA — On a day meant to honor the nation’s war dead, shooters attacked a gathering Monday night in a barrage of bullets that city officials said evoked a “wartime” assault.

“This was wartime ammunition that was just opened on Philadelphians and those here in our city,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said of the late-night Memorial Day shooting spree in Fairmount Park that left two dead and nine wounded.

The victims ranged in age from 15 to 28, and the wounded were reported in stable condition Tuesday. It was unclear whether they had been targeted.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said the “rapid gunfire” that erupted around 10:30 p.m. in the park’s Lemon Hill area, which overlooks the Schuylkill and Boathouse Row, evoked “the sound of war.”

Killed were Mikhail Bowers, 21, and Amya Devlin, 23, both from Philadelphia. Hundreds were gathered in the area at the time, Bethel said, and with a total of 11 victims it was among the larger shooting incidents in the city’s recent history.

The status of the investigation

As of late Tuesday afternoon, no suspects had been identified, but police said they believe at least three shooters opened fire on the crowd. In all, 21 shell casings were recovered at the scene, fired from three different calibers of guns.

Videos shared on social media provided evidence that the weapons were modified to fire quicker into the crowd.

The gunfire sent people scurrying for their lives. Amid the chaos, at least one car crash occurred on nearby Sedgley Drive.

Police believe a gun switch was used

While the gun in question has yet to be recovered, Bethel said one of the weapons evidently was modified with a gun switch.

“When you have an automatic weapon, you can empty a magazine, a 20-clip magazine, in seconds. It is meant to kill, to create carnage, and to hit as many people as possible,” Bethel said. “And in this case, you see, it was able to do that.”

“It’s pretty rapid fire, we’re pretty confident that there was a switch on this gun,” Bethel said.

A gun switch, also referred to as a Glock switch or button, is a small device that transforms a semiautomatic firearm like a handgun into a fully automatic weapon capable of shooting several rounds per second.

Federal law bars owning machine guns made after 1986, a prohibition that includes conversion devices like gun switches. They are specifically banned in Philadelphia and Delaware County, though not elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Half of U.S. states have enacted bans on these types of devices.

Said Parker, “We will not be held hostage by anyone who decides that they want to get assault-like, warlike weaponry, guns with switches. ... This is a heinous act of violence that was inhumane, [with] no regard for life.”

About Lemon Hill, the location of the shootings

Lemon Hill, not far from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Zoo, is a historic property purchased by the city in 1844 in the early stages of creating Fairmount Park.

It’s home to Lemon Hill Mansion, a Federal-style structure built in 1800 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It’s currently owned by the city and operates as a museum managed by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation.

The wealthy person who built the mansion named it for the lemons growing in his greenhouse.

The grounds are a popular gathering place.

During next year‘s FIFA World Cup, Lemon Hill will host Philadelphia‘s fan fest site, where it is expected to welcome thousands of soccer fans from other cities and countries. A spokesperson for Philadelphia Soccer 2026, which is planning the city’s leg of the tournament, said the organization was in “close contact” with the city.

Other shooting incidents have occurred in Fairmount Park

Other shootings have occurred in Fairmount Park, one of the nation’s largest urban green spaces with parcels in neighborhoods throughout the city.

In June, one person was killed and four others were wounded, including a 14-year-old boy and two 15-year-old boys, in a shooting near the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood.

And in February, a man and woman were shot and killed — apparently “execution style” — near Mount Pleasant Mansion, not far from Lemon Hill.

Bethel said more officers would be deployed in Fairmount Park beginning this weekend in an attempt to identify issues before they escalate into violence.

“The intelligence coming through our portal is not fast enough,” Bethel said Tuesday. “We need to evolve, and so we’re going to be putting a number of different law enforcement assets into the park to identify activity ahead, with the hope that we can stave off these activities before they occur.”

Bethel addressed safety concerns ahead of The Roots Picnic concert, scheduled to take place this weekend at the Mann Center in Fairmount Park.

“We’re going to The Roots with significant planning,” Bethel said. “We will take a look at our deployment and possibly do some additional enhancements.”

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(Staff writer Nate File contributed to this article.)

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