Philadelphia Leaders Threaten Prosecution For Those Who Fire 'Celebratory Gunshots' On New Year's Eve
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia city leaders have an urgent warning to people ahead of New Year's Eve: do not celebrate by shooting off guns into the air, or you will be prosecuted. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and other law enforcement officials came together Thursday morning to issue the warning.
Officials call it a serious matter, but they also couldn't provide an exact number on how many people were injured or killed in the city from people firing a gun into the air while celebrating the new year last year.
They said firing so-called "celebratory gunshots" into the air can result in arrest and conviction, regardless of whether anyone is physically injured.
The city's sheriff also say people can pick up free gunlocks from her office.
"Everybody who knows they got somebody in their house with a gun. I'm here today to say come get this gunlock," Sheriff Rochelle Bilal said. "I'm telling you to lock it up, you lock that gun up that you know your nephew, your son, your man is going to go out there and do something stupid like shoot it up in the air. Come get this gunlock from me"
Philadelphia's record homicide rate now stands at 557 people killed with a day and half left in the year.
