Eleven Teens Shot at a Birthday Gathering in a Macon, Georgia, Park
Two victims, an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old, are in critical condition after an argument between two groups at Carolyn Crayton Park turned into gunfire around midnight. The sheriff says he can't remember the last time so many people were shot at once.
Eleven people in their late teens were shot around midnight at a park in Macon, Georgia, after an argument at what authorities described as a birthday gathering turned into gunfire, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office said Sunday.
The shooting happened at "a large gathering" in Carolyn Crayton Park, in the central Georgia city about 85 miles southeast of Atlanta. Deputies were alerted just after midnight Sunday, and while they were on the way, they received reports that several gunshot victims were already arriving at a local medical facility, according to the sheriff's office.
The wounded were four 18-year-old men, two 18-year-old women and five 17-year-old boys. Two of them, an 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy, were in critical condition, officials said. The others were listed as stable.
Sheriff David Davis told reporters the group had planned to hold the birthday party at an Airbnb in neighboring Jones County, but the host made them leave. The partygoers, who included students from Macon's Central High School and Northeast High School, then went to the park. Another group showed up, Davis said, and an argument between the two groups escalated into shooting. All of the victims were part of the birthday party, he said, adding that he "can't remember the last time we've had this many people shot at one time."
The FBI is assisting because of the number of people involved, but Davis said the evidence so far points to a local dispute. The sheriff's office had not announced any arrests or identified suspects by Sunday afternoon. Its Criminal Investigation Division is handling the case and has asked anyone with information to call the sheriff's office at 478-751-7500 or Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
The Macon shooting was one of two multiple-victim shootings in American cities within hours on Sunday. In Detroit, three men were killed and four other people were wounded at an "after-hours" location on the city's west side around 7:21 a.m., Police Chief Todd Bettison said. Bettison said the shooting stemmed from a fight, that the men who died were "approximately 30 and up," and that police had been called to the address seven times this year. "I don't view this as an ongoing danger to the public or the community," he said, adding that investigators have leads.
The weekend's violence also extended overseas. In South Africa, gunmen killed 27 people in two mass shootings in Johannesburg and Cape Town, capping a week in which nearly 40 people died in such attacks.
