Four people have been killed and multiple people injured during a shooting Saturday night in Dadeville, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said the shooting happened at about 10:30 p.m. There was no initial confirmation about what led to the shooting. It was not immediately known if a suspect was in custody.
Pastor Ben Hayes, who serves as the chaplain for the Dadeville Police Department and for the local high school football team, said most of the victims are teenagers because the shooting occurred at a birthday party for a 16-year-old. He said the shooting has rocked the small town where serious crime is rare.
“One of the young men that were killed was one of our star athletes and just a great guy. So I knew many of these students. Dadeville is a small town and this is going to affect everybody in this area,” Hayes said.
WRBL-TV reported that the shooting happened at a dance studio. The station showed images of crime scene tape around the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio and neighbouring buildings and a heavy police presence.
“This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians. Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement posted on social media.
Dadeville, which has a population of about 3,200 people, is in east Alabama, about 57 miles (92 kilometres) northeast of Montgomery, Alabama.
There have been at least 146 mass shootings across the US so far this year, including the attack at a school in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed, and the mass shooting in Kentucky on Monday, which left four victims dead.
Figures from the Gun Violence Archive - a non-profit research database - show that the number of mass shootings has gone up significantly in recent years.
(With inputs from Online desk)