New shooting in the U.S., 157th so far this year

A shooting during the birthday party of a teenager in Dadeville, Alabama, southern United States (USA) left at least four dead and more than a dozen wounded, according to witnesses and local media, although the figure could rise in the coming hours.

The shooting occurred around 22H30 local time on Saturday at the Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio in Dadeville, a small town in Tallapoosa County, where a birthday party was being held.

For more than eight hours after the incident, police did not release details about the shooting, the victims or the suspect.

Dadeville was trending on social media, where an image circulated showing six people collapsed inside a venue amid pleas from some users to remove the image.

Other users on social media recorded a video at a nearby hospital where families awaited news about their injured loved ones.

There is no information on the suspect’s condition or what may have prompted Saturday’s mass shooting, which occurred while celebrating a teenager’s birthday at the dance studio.

The Alabama shooting came as a similar incident in Louisville, Kentucy, on the same day left two people dead and four others wounded.

Louisville Metro Police said they received a call around 21H00 local time reporting that several people had been shot in Chickasaw Park.

Separately, Dadeville, the county seat of Tallapoosa County in east central Alabama, has a population of just over 3,000 people.

But Dadeville was rocked by at least one previous mass shooting when a gunman wounded five people on August 28, 2016 during a party at the American Legion Hall.

This new shooting comes as Gun Violence Archive, an organization that monitors shootings in the U.S., as of April 15 recorded 157 such incidents so far this year.