Four Dead in Alabama ‘Sweet 16’ Birthday Party Shooting
At least four people were killed and 28 wounded in a shooting that erupted during a late-night “Sweet 16” birthday celebration at a dance studio in the small town of Dadeville, Alabama, United States’ State Police and news media said on Sunday.
Some of the injured were critically wounded during the shooting in east-central Alabama, about 60 miles (100 km) northeast of the state capital of Montgomery, authorities said.
There was no official word on what led to the gun violence. Authorities said the shooting started shortly after 10:30pm on Saturday but they declined to answer questions or provide further details during two Sunday news conferences.
“We’re going to continue to work in a very methodical way to go through this scene, to look at the facts, and ensure that justice is brought to bear for the families,” said Jeremy Burkett, a sergeant with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.
The Montgomery Advertiser newspaper reported that one of the four people killed during the violence was a high school football player who was among those attending his sister’s “Sweet 16” birthday party when a gunman opened fire.
The newspaper, quoting the victim’s grandmother, identified the slain teenager as Phil Dowdell, whom she said was set to graduate in a matter of weeks and planned to attend Jacksonville State University on a football scholarship. The party was being held inside the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio, converted from an old bank building located about half a block from city hall in Dadeville, a town of about 3200 residents.
The bloodshed in Alabama marked the third high-profile mass shooting in as many weeks in the U.S. South, following separate outbreaks of deadly gun violence in Tennessee and Kentucky that prompted local leaders to call for tighter gun control measures. Dadeville itself was shaken by at least one prior mass shooting in August 2016, when a gunman wounded five people during a party at an American Legion hall, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
“What has our nation come to when children cannot attend a birthday party without fear?” President Joe Biden said.
He called the rising gun violence in the U.S. “outrageous and unacceptable,” and urged the U.S. Congress to pass laws to make firearms manufacturers more liable part of an audio recording with the voice of a man Mr Orlandi said was part of an organised crime group that Italian media have for decades speculated may have been involved in his sister’s disappearance.
The voice of the alleged gangster says that more than 40 year ago, girls were brought into the Vatican to be molested and that Pope John Paul knew about it.
Mr Orlandi then said in his own words on the show: “They tell me Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II’s surname) used to go out in the evenings with two Polish monsignors and it certainly was not to bless houses”.
The comments caused a storm and were condemned by Vatican officials in the past few days before the Pope himself entered the fray at his noon address to about 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.
- Reuters
Photo: for gun violence, ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and require safe storage of firearms and background checks for gun sales.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S., with more than 163 so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as any in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S., with more than 163 so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since at least 2016 according to the Gun Violence Archive.