At least four people died and around 20 others, mostly teenagers, were injured when a gunman opened fire on Saturday during a birthday party in a southern US town, days after a tragedy similar at a bank in Kentucky. The shootings occurred around 10:30 p.m. in Dadeville, a small town in Alabama, local authorities said, without indicating whether a suspect was in custody.
They were targeting the Mahogany Masterpiece, a downtown dance hall where a teenage girl was celebrating her sixteenth birthday. A bullet hole was still visible on Sunday on the glass door of the building, surrounded by the famous yellow police banners.
“This act tragically claimed the lives of four people and left many injured,” state authority official Jeremy Burkett told a news conference.
He later said that 28 people had been injured, several seriously, and urged residents to share any information they might have about the attack. Mr. Burkett, however, did not provide further details on the circumstances of the tragedy or the motive of the shooter.
An investigation is opened to clarify the circumstances of the tragedy and the motive of the shooter. Law enforcement believe an altercation led to the tragedy, according to local broadcaster WRBL.
The Lake Martin hospital received 15 injured, including “a majority of teenagers”, one of its managers, Heidi Smith, told AFP. Other injured were treated elsewhere, she said.
The birthday girl’s brother was among those killed, their grandmother told the newspaper Montgomery Advertiser. He was a teenager without history, “who always had a smile”, she confided.
The fear of parents
US President Joe Biden regretted in a statement that the United States was “once again bereaved” by shootings.
“What has become of our country when children cannot go to a birthday party without fear? When parents have to worry every time their children walk through the door to school, the cinema, or go to the park? »
The democrat is moved, after each shooting, by the recurrence of these massacres. Since his inauguration, he has taken a series of decrees to better regulate firearms, but his powers are limited, because Congress has jurisdiction in the matter.
However, the Republicans are very reluctant to make any significant change, and many elected officials are under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the main American arms lobby.
Local politicians in this state won over to the Conservatives have also expressed their “pain”, but have been careful not to call for legislative change. “Violent crime has no place in our state,” Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey tweeted, while Senator Katie Britt said she was “heartbroken.”
The United States pays a very heavy price for the spread of firearms in its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them. On Saturday evening, additional shootings left at least two people dead and four injured in a park in Louisville, Kentucky, according to local police. It is in this city that a young man had opened fire on Monday in the bank which employed him, killing five people.
The United States has more individual weapons than people. The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of death by firearm, without comparison with that of other developed countries.