Security video released Friday by Philadelphia police shows a group of teens fatally beating a man in his early 70s with a traffic cone.
In a statement, the Philadelphia Police Department said authorities were searching for seven teens seen in the video, which was recorded on the morning on June 24.
The victim, who was not identified in the statement and who police blurred in the video, fell to the ground after being struck with "objects," the department said. He died the next day.
In the video, the department said a reward of $20,000 was being offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
The department said the group appeared to be in their early to mid-teens.
The man was identified by NBC Philadelphia as 73-year-old James Lambert Jr., who went by “Simmie,” according to his family.
The video showed the man crossing a street north of downtown Philadelphia before one of the teens can be seen hurling a cone at him. It isn't clear if the teens knew the man or what occurred before the apparent assault.
A second teen is seen in the video picking up the cone and throwing it at the man. After he walks off, the teenage girl is seen picking up the cone again and running after him.
She appears to be preparing to hurl it again before disappearing off camera. The video shows several other teens watching the incident.
Philadelphia saw a record 523 homicides last year. So far in 2022 there have been 280, down 2 percent from the same time last year, NBC Philadelphia reported.
According to the most recent FBI data available, the murder rate rose by nearly 30% across the United States in 2020. Experts aren't certain about what's driving the surge in violent crime.
The national homicide rate of 6.5 per 100,000 people in 2020 is still lower than it was during much of the 1990s, however.