American police were on Monday trying to understand how, and why, a teenager’s birthday party turned tragic this weekend in the southern United States, with four killed and around 20 injured after shootings.
Since the events on Saturday evening in the state of Alabama, the authorities have maintained an unusual silence in a country where the police are used to communicating about shootings, tragedies that punctuate the daily life of Americans.
The police limited their statements and leaked very few details of the circumstances. No arrests have been announced and the motive of the alleged shooter is unknown.
We just know that shots interrupted the party of a teenager, who was celebrating her sixteenth birthday in a dance hall in Dadeville.
Four people died, including, according to the media, the girl’s brother, and 28 others were injured, some seriously.
“I assure you that you are doing everything we can,” state authority official Jeremy Burkett told AFP on Monday.
The day before, he had indicated that the investigators were following a “methodical” process of gathering information to understand who was in this room.
“We are not going to rush into it and risk failing,” he said.
The police have repeatedly explained that they need the public’s help to understand what happened.
“We need to get information from the locals,” Mr. Burkett insisted at a press conference on Sunday. “I can’t stress this enough. Even if you think it’s minor, you should definitely tell us about it. »
” Bright future “
Initial information has nevertheless been released on the profile of the victims, who seem to be mostly teenagers.
The birthday teenager’s big brother, Philstavious Dowdell, was an accomplished young athlete.
The football coach at the university where he was to go said on Sunday that he was “a wonderful young man with a bright future”.
A high school girl is also among those killed, according to CNN.
The party seems to have degenerated when the mother of the young girl who was celebrating her birthday announced to the guests that she had learned that people were armed, asking them to leave, according to media.
Witnesses said they heard the first shots a few minutes later.
One of those injured on Saturday evening took part the next afternoon in a rally in tribute to the victims, still in his hospital uniform, according to the newspaper. Montgomery Advertiser.
“I saw a group of girls dancing, and that’s when the shots rang out,” Taniya Cox said.
The young woman said she saw “other shooters” crossing the room, a detail that has not been confirmed by the police. “They told me to get out or else I’d get shot. »
Taniya Cox said she was shot twice in the right arm.
Despite the young age of the victims and the tragic circumstances, this shooting did not make headlines in the United States and provoked relatively little political reaction, even if President Joe Biden was moved that America was “a again bereaved” by shooting.
The repetition of tragedies of this type—a few days earlier, a man had killed five people in a bank in Kentucky—reinforces a certain fatalism in public opinion.
The country, which has more individual weapons than inhabitants, pays a heavy price for their dissemination.
The very high death rate from firearms is without comparison with that of other developed countries.