Four killed in Alabama Sweet 16 birthday party shooting

April 16 (Reuters) – At least four people were killed and 28 wounded in a shooting that broke out during a late-night “Sweet 16” party at a dance studio in the small town of Dadeville, Alabama, state police and local news media said. said on Sunday.

Some of the injured were seriously wounded during the shooting in eastern Alabama, about 100 kilometers northeast of the state capital, Montgomery, officials said. There was no official information on what led to the gun violence.

Authorities said the shooting began shortly after 10:30 p.m. CT Saturday, but declined to answer questions or provide additional details at two news conferences Sunday.

Authorities said there is no longer a threat to the community, but did not say whether the suspect was killed or arrested.

“We continue to work very methodically to go through this scene, look at the facts and make sure the families get justice,” said Jeremy Burkett, Alabama law enforcement sergeant. Office.

The Montgomery Advertiser newspaper reported that one of the four people killed in the violence was a high school football player who was at his sister’s “Sweet 16” birthday party when the gunman opened fire.

Quoting the victim’s grandmother, the newspaper identified the slain teenager as Phil Dowdell, who she said was graduating in a few weeks and planned to attend Jacksonville State University on a football scholarship.

Reuters could not independently confirm the information or identify the other three victims.

The party was held at the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio, a converted old bank building located about half a block from City Hall in Dadeville, a town of about 3,200. The place was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape on Sunday.

Hundreds of community members gathered early Sunday evening in a parking lot a few blocks from the shooting site for an outdoor prayer vigil.

‘WHAT HAS OUR PEOPLE GOT CHRISTMAS TO?’

The bloodbath in Alabama was the third high-profile mass shooting in as many weeks in the southern US after separate outbreaks of deadly gun violence in Tennessee and Kentucky, prompting local leaders to call for tougher gun control measures.

Dadeville was rocked by at least one previous mass shooting in August 2016, when a gunman wounded five people at a party at the American Legion hall, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

“Where has our nation come to when children can’t attend birthday parties without fear?” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Sunday.

Biden called increasing gun violence in the United States “outrageous and unacceptable” and called on the US Congress to pass laws holding gun manufacturers accountable for gun violence, banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and requiring safe storage of firearms and background checks on gun sales.

Tallapoosa County Schools Superintendent Raymond Porter said counseling will be offered at area schools Monday and asked local clergy to help families through the situation.

“We are doing everything we can to comfort these children and not lose sight of the fact that they are the most affected by this situation,” Porter said.

Meanwhile, Republicans vying for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination and other prominent party members sought unwavering support for unrestricted gun rights in Indiana over the weekend at the annual conference of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the nation’s largest gun lobby. .

The Dadeville killings came five days after a bank employee shot five of his colleagues and wounded nine others at his workplace in Louisville, Kentucky. On March 27, a former student killed three 9-year-old children and three staff members at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mass shootings are on the rise in the United States, with more than 163 in 2023, the most for this time of year since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are injured or killed, excluding the shooter.

Reporting by Julia Harte Editing by Bill Berkrot

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