Five Members of One Family Killed in 'Targeted' East St. Louis Mass Shooting; Two Teens Arrested
Illinois State Police say five relatives were gunned down across three scenes over the weekend and two other family members were critically wounded. Two teenagers are in custody.
Five members of the same family were shot and killed and two others were critically wounded in what Illinois authorities described as a targeted mass shooting in East St. Louis over the weekend, and two teenagers have been taken into custody in connection with the killings.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said the violence was directed at a single family and unfolded across three separate scenes in the city: Jones Park, a residence in the area of 39th and Summit, and the Samuel Gompers Homes. Investigators identified the five people killed as Cherie L. May, 49; Devin D. May, 24; Patricia A. May, 74; Quentin L. Thompson, 21; and Shania W. Thompson, 25. Two additional family members were hospitalized in critical condition.
Two suspects, ages 15 and 16, were arrested at Holten State Park, state police said. Authorities said the suspects are related to one another and that at least one of them is related to one of the victims, underscoring the investigators' description of the attack as a deliberate assault on the family rather than a random act of violence. Officials said there was no known ongoing threat to the wider public.
"These alleged acts of horrific violence, taking this number of lives here in this community, it's terrible, it's evil, but it will not keep this city down," Kelly said at a briefing. He praised the residents and officers who helped locate the suspects and pledged a full accounting of what happened.
The case is being handled with the St. Clair County state's attorney's office, which will decide on formal charges. As of the initial announcement, the names of the two juvenile suspects had not been released because of their ages, and the precise sequence of events linking the three shooting scenes remained under investigation.
East St. Louis, a city of roughly 18,000 people just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, has long struggled with high rates of violent crime, and the loss of five members of one family in a single weekend stunned residents and local officials. Community leaders called for support for the survivors and for the relatives left to bury five loved ones at once, while investigators worked to reconstruct a motive for an attack that authorities said was chillingly focused on the people closest to the alleged shooters.
State and local officials said the joint investigation would continue for days as detectives pieced together the timeline connecting the three crime scenes and interviewed witnesses. Grief counselors were made available to relatives and neighbors, and officials appealed for anyone with information to come forward, stressing that even with two suspects in custody, the work of accounting for exactly how and why the family was targeted was far from over.
Originally reported by St. Louis Public Radio.