Alabama
At least four dead from gunshots at teenage birthday party in US
Investigators are working at the crime scene in downtown Dadeville. photo
© Alex Gladden/The Montgomery Advertiser/AP/dpa
A birthday party in Alabama turns into a deadly nightmare: shots are fired, most likely young people are hit. The act of violence is the latest example of gun violence in the United States.
At least four people have been killed in a shooting at a teenage birthday party in Alabama. There are also 28 injured, some of whom are life-threatening, said Jeremy Burkett of the local police at a press conference. The authorities initially gave no information on the age of the victims and the background to the act of violence. It was also unclear whether the investigators identified or even caught one or more shooters.
The shots were fired around 10:30 p.m. Saturday evening in a dance studio in the town of Dadeville, which is about 70 kilometers northeast of the capital Montgomery. US media reported that the victims were mostly young people because it was a girl’s 16th birthday party.
One of the fatalities is said to be the birthday boy’s older brother, according to the local newspaper Montgomery Advertiser. He was about to graduate from high school. “He was a very, very humble kid. He never messed with anyone. He always had a smile on his face,” the newspaper quoted his grandmother as saying. The mother was also shot, but survived.
The broadcaster CNN reported that among the 3,000 residents of Dadeville there was great resentment because of the restrained information policy of the police. However, Burkett asked for your understanding that no details could be given.
Debate over gun laws divides US
US President Joe Biden reacted with horror to the renewed bloodshed and again called for stricter gun laws in the USA, where thousands of people are shot dead every year. “What has become of our country when children can no longer go to a birthday party without fear? When parents have to worry every time their children go to school, to the cinema or to the park?”
Biden was also referring to a fatal incident in the state of Kentucky, north of Alabama. Shots were fired into a crowd in the largest city of Louisville on Saturday night, killing at least two people, police said. At least four others were injured, one of them is in mortal danger.
Without substantial tightening of the law, experts see no chance of a decrease in gun violence in the USA. In order to implement this, however, Biden and his Democrats would have to rely on the willingness of the Republicans in Congress to cooperate – and there is no sign of that on this topic. Many in the party are affiliated with the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), a firearms lobby group. When they met for their annual meeting in Indianapolis over the weekend, prominent Republicans such as Donald Trump and Mike Pence also appeared there.
Rampages and shootings are part of everyday life in the USA. There are more guns in circulation in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The non-governmental organization Gun Violence Archive has registered more than 5,000 gun violence-related deaths since the beginning of the year, not counting suicides. At the end of March, three children and three adults were shot dead in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.