At least six people including a Pennsylvania state trooper were killed and dozens injured in a string of weekend violence and mass shootings across the US.
The shootings in suburban Chicago, Washington state, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore follow a surge in homicides and other violence over the past several years that experts say accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s no question there’s been a spike in violence,” said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. “Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often among adolescents, and those disputes are played out with firearms, not with fists.”
Researchers disagree over the cause of the increase. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses, Nagin said.
As of Sunday evening, none of the weekend events fit the definition of a mass killing, because fewer than four people died at each location. However, the number of injured in most of the cases does match the widely accepted definition for mass shootings.
Here’s a look at the shootings this weekend:
WILLOWBROOK, ILLINOIS
At least 23 people were shot, one fatally, early Sunday in a suburban Chicago parking lot where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, authorities said.
The DuPage County sheriff’s office described a “peaceful gathering” that suddenly turned violent as a number of people fired multiple shots into the crowd in Willowbrook, Illinois, about 20 miles southwest of Chicago.
A police officer works the scene of an overnight mass shooting at a strip mall in Willowbrook, Illinois, on June 18, 2023. (AP)
A motive for the attack wasn’t immediately known. Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carroll said authorities were interviewing “persons of interest” in the shooting, the Daily Herald reported.
A witness, Markeshia Avery, said the celebration was meant to mark Juneteenth, Monday’s federal holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
“We just started hearing shooting, so we dropped down until they stopped,” Avery told WLS-TV.
WASHINGTON STATE
Two people were killed and two others were injured when a shooter began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a Washington state campground where people stayed to attend a nearby music festival on Saturday night, police said.
The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement officers and taken into custody, several hundred yards from the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival.
A public alert advised people of an active shooter in the area and advised them to “run, hide or fight.”
The festival carried on until early Sunday morning, Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman said. Organizers then posted a tweet saying Sunday’s concert was canceled.
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA
One state trooper was killed and a second critically wounded just hours apart in central Pennsylvania on Saturday after a gunman attacked a state police barracks.
The suspect drove his truck into the parking lot of the Lewistown barracks about 11 a.m. Saturday and opened fire with a large-caliber rifle on marked patrol cars before fleeing, authorities said Sunday.
Lt. James Wagner, 45, was shot and critically wounded after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr., 29, was ambushed and killed by a gunshot through the windshield of his patrol car as he drove down a road in nearby Walker Township, authorities said.
The suspect was shot and killed after a fierce gunbattle, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, who went up in a helicopter to coordinate the search for the 38-year-old suspect.
“What I witnessed ... was one of the most intense, unbelievable gunfights I have ever witnessed,” Bivens said, lauding troopers for launching an aggressive search despite the fact that they were facing a weapon that “would defeat any of the body armor that they had available to them.”
A motive was not immediately known.
ST. LOUIS
An early Sunday shooting in a downtown St. Louis office building killed a 17-year-old and wounded nine other teenagers, the city’s police commissioner said.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Tracy identified the victim who was killed as 17-year-old Makao Moore. A spokesman said a minor who had a handgun was in police custody as a person of interest.
Teenagers were having a party in an office space when the shooting broke out around 1 a.m. Sunday.
The victims ranged from 15 to 19 years old and had injuries including multiple gunshot wounds. A 17-year-old girl was trampled as she fled, seriously injuring her spine, Tracy said.
Shell casings from AR-style rifles and other firearms were scattered on the ground.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
A shooting at a pool party at a Southern California home left eight people wounded, authorities said Saturday.
KABC-TV reported authorities were dispatched shortly after midnight in Carson, California, south of Los Angeles.
The victims range in age from 16 to 24, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. They were taken to hospitals, and two were listed in critical condition, the statement said.
Authorities said they found another 16-year-old boy with a gunshot wound when they responded to a call about a vehicle that crashed into a wall nearby.
BALTIMORE
Six people were injured in a Friday night shooting in Baltimore. All were expected to survive.
Officers heard gunshots in the north of the city just before 9 p.m. and found three men with numerous gunshot wounds. Medics took them to area hospitals for treatment.
Police later learned of three additional victims who walked into area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The wounded ranged in age from 17 to 26, Baltimore Police Department spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said.
GEORGE, Washington: Two people were killed and three others injured after police said a shooter began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a Washington state campground that was hosting people attending a nearby music festival on Saturday night, police said.
Authorities received the first report of the shooting shortly before 8:30 p.m. at the camping area a few hundred yards from the Gorge Amphitheater, where thousands of people were attending an electronic dance music festival, said Kyle Foreman, public information officer with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. The Gorge is near the small city of George, about 150 miles (239 kilometers) east of Seattle.
After the initial shots were fired, the suspect started moving through the campground and “continued to shoot randomly into the crowd” until he was eventually confronted by police and taken into custody, Foreman said.
The suspect was shot in the confrontation with police, Foreman said. The suspect was hospitalized for his injuries, but no further details were immediately released.
A public alert had advised people that there was an active shooter in the area and to “run, hide or fight,” but Foreman said there was no effort to evacuate the festival. The festival continued following the shooting and did not end until early Sunday morning, Foreman said.
“He was, again, on the periphery of the property. Law enforcement had eyes on him, and they were able to keep him in that area. He wasn’t moving toward the venue,” Foreman said.
Yazmin Alvarez, 30, was with her husband and friend at a campsite near the amphitheater when a woman ran by and told them there was an active shooter, Alvarez told the Seattle Times.
Alvarez’s group ran toward the exit, finding cover by buildings near a road, along with another dozen or so people. They saw helicopter lights as the festival carried on nearby.
“It just felt uncomfortable since we are also hearing people having a great time to the left of us,” Alvarez said. The group went back to the campground to retrieve their IDs and sweaters but left their camping gear behind.
Details on the victims would be released at a later time, Foreman said.
Organizers of the Beyond Wonderland electronic music festival said on social media that Sunday’s events at the Gorge were canceled.
Concert organizers described the shooting site as an “overflow camping area,” and most people who were staying there were likely at the concert when the shooting occurred, Foreman said.
An independent oversight group, the North Central Washington Special Investigation Unit, is investigating the shooting.
