Washington: At least four people were killed and 28 others injured during a mass shooting at a birthday party in the US state of Alabama, authorities said.
In a statement on Sunday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said the deadly rampage took place in the city of Dadeville late Saturday night, CNN reported.
With a population of about 3,200 people, Dadeville is a small, rural city about 45 miles northeast of state capital Montgomery.
“There were four lives tragically lost in this incident, and there’s been a multitude of injuries,” Sgt. Jeremy J. Burkett said.
There was a “wide variety of injuries that were sustained” during the incident and some of the victims remain in critical condition, CNN quoted Burkett as saying during a Sunday afternoon news conference.
“Please understand this is also a very fluid situation. We have been getting continuous updates throughout the day and we are absolutely trying to confirm and understand everyone that was in the venue there,” he said.
Burkett said they were still speaking with witnesses and trying to gather information about the shooting.
Police did not release any details about a suspect or a motive during the news conference.
One of the victims killed was Philstavious Dowdell — a stellar high school football player and the brother of the birthday girl, said Ben Hayes, the football team’s chaplain, and Keenan Cooper, who was the DJ at the party when the gunfire broke out.
Dowdell was about to graduate high school next month and earned a scholarship to play football at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, Cooper told CNN.
The teen was “kind of like the hometown hero”, he added.
The Alabama shooting took place the same day that shots were fired into a crowd at a park in Louisville, Kentucky. Two people were killed and four others wounded.
The incident marked the Louisville’s second mass shooting in less than a week.
On April 10, a gunman killed five people and injured several others at Louisville’s Old National Bank
Across the US, there has been at least 163 mass shootings in the first 15 weeks of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
An average of more than 1.5 mass shootings every day so far this year.
President Joe Biden renewed his calls for tougher gun laws after the incident.
“What has our nation come to when children cannot attend a birthday party without fear?” Biden asked, in a statement released by the White House on Sunday.
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