At least four people died and three were wounded in a shooting at an unlicensed private social club in New York early Saturday, police said. No one has been arrested over the early morning shooting in Brooklyn, and the motive and exact circumstances are not known, a New York police official told AFP.

The shooting on the borough's major artery Utica Avenue took place at the Triple A Aces Private & Social Rental Place, what NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea called "an illegal gambling location." Four men were pronounced dead at the scene, while two other men and a woman suffered non-life threatening injuries, the police official said.

Shea told journalists at a briefing there was evidence of gambling, specifically cards and dice, and that preliminary investigations indicated that a minimum of 15 shots were fired. Shea said it was too early to tell whether the dispute was gambling or perhaps robbery-related. Two firearms were recovered and the police official said he "would not be shocked if we recovered more."

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019