MIAMI, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Miami police Sunday were investigating one of the biggest street shootings in the city's history, which left two people dead and seven injured, officials said.
Investigators say two male teenagers were slain late Friday when an unidentified gunman approached a crowd of about 50 people gathered around a street craps game in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood and opened fire with an assault rifle, The Miami Herald reported.
Police said the seven other shooting victims, all males in their late teens and early 20s, were taken local hospitals, with one of them critically wounded. Witnesses have been uncooperative and silent when questioned, authorities said.
Community and religious leaders gathered at the roped-off crime scene Saturday, denouncing gang violence, the Herald reported. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, Police Chief John Timoney and others decried state budget cuts to anti-poverty programs and inner city schools and criticized the lack of government restrictions on assault rifles, which they said are being increasingly used in Miami murders.
"These are weapons of war. They don't belong on the streets of Miami or any other city in America," Diaz told reporters.
