Mass shooting at teenager’s birthday party is the third mass shooting in the southern US in as many weeks.
At least four people have been killed and 28 injured in a shooting at a teenager’s birthday party in the US state of Alabama.
Authorities said the shooting occurred during a “Sweet 16” birthday celebration at a dance studio in the town of Dadeville, about 92 km (57 mi) northeast of Montgomery, shortly after 10:30 p.m. Saturday (03:30 GMT Sunday).
Among the victims is a senior who was celebrating his sister’s 16th birthday, the student’s grandmother, Annette Allen, told the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper.
The newspaper said the slain teen was due to graduate in weeks and planned to attend Jacksonville State University on a football scholarship.
Officials said on Sunday there was no longer a threat to the general public, but did not specify whether a suspect had been arrested or killed.
“We need to get information from the community,” Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Sergeant Jeremy Burkett said at a news conference Sunday night.
Burkett and other law enforcement officials declined to provide details about the perpetrator or possible motives.
“We will continue to work in a very methodical way to go through this scene, to look at the facts and make sure justice is served for the families,” Burkett added.
The shooting is the third high-profile outbreak of gun violence in as many weeks in southern US states, following other mass shootings in Tennessee and Kentucky.
US President Joe Biden described the latest violence as “outrageous and unacceptable” and reiterated calls for Congress to pass gun control measures, including background checks on all gun sales and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“What happened to our country if children can’t go to a birthday party without fear?” Biden in a statement.
“If parents have to worry every time their children walk out the door to school, to the cinema or to the park?”
The mass shooting in Dadeville comes less than a week after a bank employee killed five colleagues and injured nine others at his workplace in Louisville, Kentucky. Last month, a former student at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee shot and killed three 9-year-olds and three staff members.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the US has seen more than 163 mass shootings so far in 2023 — defined as a shooting in which four or more people are killed or injured, not counting the attacker.
Attempts to pass gun control legislation have been repeatedly frustrated by opposition from Republicans, who have set themselves up as defenders of the U.S. Constitution’s right to bear arms.