A weekend of celebration ended in violence when five people were shot at Franklin Park in Boston after the Dominican Festival, according to authorities.
Officers were in the process of clearing out the crowds after the festival at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, when someone fired multiple shots into the crowd, Boston police said.
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Three men and two women were injured, according to police, who said one was rushed to the hospital by an officer, while the four others were taken by ambulance.
Their injuries were considered to be non-life threatening.
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Police are urging witnesses to come forward and help them arrest the shooter or shooters.
"There were many, many people who witnessed this and we need the public's support on this. If anybody has any video footage, anything of that sort, we really need the help on this because we need to hold a human responsible," said Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox. "Whether it was an individual or individuals responsible for this heinous act, shooting into a crowd."
The victims' names and ages weren't released, and no arrests have been made so far.
Festival organizers, who spent countless hours doing hard work in the last year of planning, tell NBC10 Boston they're frustrated by what happened -- that the success of the day was derailed by the shooting just steps away from the festivities. But they say the violence did not start with their attendees.
“It’s out of our hands. We can no have control in that,” said Ysolina Pepin, with Casa de La Cultura en Boston.
“We wanna more positive things about the events, the amounts of people that was there than the negative thing that happen almost every weekend around Boston City,” said Marte Milagros. "It's something else happened around the Franklin Park like every weekend , like it most frequently happens. It has nothing to do with the Dominican Festival.”
Police have said they heard multiple gunshots while disbursing the festival's crowd.
"This incident really marred a pretty successful event for the folks here,” the Boston police commissioner said Sunday.
“We need the public support," Cox added. "There were many many people in the park. If you have video or phone footage, know people, please contact us.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement that she's deeply disturbed that anyone would seek to disrupt the family-friendly day with violence.
