3 found dead in parked car near Columbia University

Police investigate the Morningside Heights scene where three men were found shot to death Thursday evening. (credit: Eileen Lehpamer, 1010 WINS)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork)?- Police were looking at surveillance video Thursday night after three men were found shot dead?inside a parked car on West 122nd Street in Morningside Heights earlier in the day.

The startling discovery was made in front of the Manhattan School of Music by two men who walked by and noticed the dead bodies inside a 2012 BMW, 1010 WINS' Eileen Lehpamer reported.

The victims - shot in the neck -? were said to be in their 20s or 30s. The tinted windows of the car were in-tact and officials said whoever shot the men may have been inside the car, Lehpamer reported.

The location of the incident is also in the vicinity of Columbia University, but there was no indication that any of men were affiliated with either Columbia or the Manhattan School of Music, police said.

Despite that, students at Columbia were sent a campus-wide e-mail alerting them to what had happened. Some in the area? said they were alarmed by the killings, but others said they were unfazed.

"I heard the police knocking on my neighbor's door. I didn't imagine it was something so serious," one man said.

"I'm just worried about my girlfriend because she was out of town," another man said.

"I never feel unsafe walking around. I figure everybody's just kinda going about there business," said one woman.

The victims have not yet been identified.

One possible lead for police is the fact that the license plate was not yet fully registered to the late model, newly purchased car.

Police were tracing the plates and investigating whether the victims were killed elsewhere, then driven to the location and abandoned.

CBS, New York

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