Four people have been killed and 16 others injured in a shooting in western Mississippi during a high school football homecoming celebration, according to local officials early on Saturday.
The incident took place around midnight on Friday, John Lee, the mayor of Leland, a small city in Washington county, said to the Guardian in a telephone interview on Saturday morning. At least 12 of the wounded were being treated at nearby hospitals.
Lee said that an attack happened on a main street in Leland, where crowds had gathered for the town’s high school homecoming game against Charleston high school.
Few details have been confirmed, but local media reported that state senator Derrick Simmons said the shooting occurred during a gathering after the game.
Simmons further said that four people had been airlifted to the University of Mississippi medical center in critical condition. No suspects have been named or any details released about whether a suspect is alive or dead or their whereabouts.
The Mississippi bureau of investigation is leading an inquiry, local media reported.
Around 200 miles away to the south-east, in Heidelberg, another small town in Mississippi, police on Saturday were also investigating a shooting during the local school’s homecoming weekend there that left two people dead. And there were unconfirmed reports of a third shooting, at Rolling Fork high school, just 40 miles south of Leland in the Mississippi delta, with local news media reporting that the Sharkey county sheriff’s department had responded to a shooting at a football game Friday night, with with no further details emerging.
Leland is a small city in Washington county, Mississippi, with a population of about 3,800 in 2023, according to Data USA.
A staff member of the Leland police department, who did not offer a name but responded to a call from the Guardian, said in a statement that the incident remained under investigation, and declined to provide further details.
The names of victims have not yet been disclosed.
“I just want to send our condolences to the families of the deceased and to all those who are being treated,” Lee said. “We need to be in prayer for our city.”
Meanwhile, the chief of police in Heidelberg, Cornell White, speaking of the shooting that happened there at the school event, in Jasper county, said that two people had been killed. He declined to say whether the victims were school students or provide further information about the incident.
“Right now we’ve still got a subject at large, but I can’t give specifics,” White said on Saturday morning.
An 18-year-old man was being sought for questioning in the relation to the shooting there, the Jasper county sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Source link
