Parkway witnesses say the scene became chaotic as people fled following gunfire at 4th of July fireworks

Two police officers were shot and injured in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art while on duty at the city’s Independence Day celebrations on Monday night.

Attendees at Monday’s Wawa Welcome America Fourth of July Party on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway described people running in panic after gunfire began just after 9:47 p.m.

Regina Hicks, 33, and her nephew found a spot near the stage when the fireworks started. Shortly after, Hicks heard a commotion.

“We all just turned around and look and see people are running toward us,” said Hicks. “They told us that they were shooting.”

Hicks said people were running in panic. She and her nephew tried to get away from the crowds that were pushing their way out.

» READ MORE: Live updates: 2 police officers shot during Philly July 4th celebration

Tracy Fairey, 46, and her daughter, Harper, 6, were watching the fireworks near the Franklin Institute at 20th Street and the Parkway when the crowd began to push back, screaming. When people began running Fairey took her daughter and hid behind a city truck.

“I figured it was safe, at least from getting trampled,” she said. Fairey said people jumped over a wall, into the Franklin Institute’s grassy area, and people were hiding In the shrubbery.

“Some people were banging on the doors but they wouldn’t let them in,” she said.

» READ MORE: What we know and don’t know about the Parkway shooting

Jeremy Kirchner, 19, was selling hot dogs at a stand close to the stage when he heard “pops” and saw people running.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“It’s a shooting!”

Kirchner said he started running too. When he others who couldn’t run, he said he told them to hide.

“I can’t believe this,” he said an hour after the shooting. “It was such a beautiful day.”

Irem Ozdemir, 24, an au pair from Turkey living in Haddonfield, said she and her friends weren’t sure what was happening at first.

“We saw people running, screaming, saying, ‘Get out of here, get out of here.’ It was horrible. We saw people looking for their kids, screaming, ‘Where is my kid?’ Some people were having panic attacks. We ran,” said Ozdemir.

They ran for blocks, then managed to hop on a train back to New Jersey.

Ozdemir comes to Philadelphia regularly in her down time, but the shooting shook her, she said.

“I’ve never been in a situation like that — it was really bad,” she said. “My friends and I were saying, ‘We should have just stayed home.’ We talked about how we don’t want to go anywhere crowded again.”

NBC 10 reporter Leah Uko said she had to take cover near the music stage, saying people were told to stay down and then told to run. She described taking cover as a “stampede” of people ran from the Parkway.

CBS3 reporter Alicia Roberts was watching the fireworks, not working, when she said she saw people running.

”Literally probably three or four fireworks went off and we all of a sudden saw this stampede of people coming down the street,” she told CBS3.

“After that, we saw a wave of police cars almost driving down toward MLK toward 676, and then we saw a second wave of people. And it was in that second wave of people that you really started to realize something was wrong... People were visibly distressed, we saw many people kind of crying,” she said.

Local photographer HughE Dillon, also spoke to CBS3 about his experience on the Parkway, which he said started as “very orderly” before police told people in the area to “run, run, run. Don’t look back, run.”

Investigators are still seeking to determine where the shots were fired from, how many were fired, and whether the shots were intentionally fired toward police or the officers were struck by stray gunfire. Police said no one else was shot.

Staff writers Justine McDaniel, Chris Palmer, Ximena Conde, Jason Nark, and Kristen A. Graham contributed reporting.