Shocking news has emerged from New York in the last few hours as two members of New York based Iranian dance-punk band The Yellow Dogs have been killed, along with a friend of the band, in a shooting in the Bushwick area of Brookyln early on Monday morning (Irish time).

The gunman, identified by the Wall Street Journal as 29-year-old Ali Akbar Mohammadi Raffie, was a former member of another Iranian band (Free Keys) and used a semi-automatic rifle to kill brothers Soroush Farazmand and Arash Farazmand, along with a friend of theirs, Ali Eskandarian, according to the band's managers. A fourth man, Sasan Sadeghpourosko, was also wounded in the shooting but has since been released from hospital.

The Yellow Dogs hailed from Tehran in Iran and sang in English and played western instruments, which was deemed illegal by Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the band eventually fled to New York City in January 2010.

Media reports from the scene state that a man "stormed into the building and kept firing round after round". Two were shot on the first floor, while the third was shot on his bed on the third floor. The gunman eventually made his way to the roof of the building where he shot himself.

An update from The Yellow Dogs' manager states that the gunman and the deceased were former acquaintances and had a falling out in 2012.