LELAND, Miss. (AP) — High school students’ homecoming celebrations in Mississippi ended in gunfire, with two separate shootings on opposite sides of the state Friday night that left at least eight people dead and many others injured, authorities said.
Six people were killed in downtown Leland after a high school homecoming football game in the Mississippi Delta region in the west of the state, according to the county coroner. In the eastern part of the state, a pregnant woman was among the dead, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said.
Twenty people injured in shooting in Delta region
In Leland, four people were killed and two later died at a hospital, according to a statement from Washington County Coroner La’Quesha Watkins.
About 20 people were shot and injured after people gathered downtown after the game, Sen. Derrick Simmons said. Of them, four were in critical condition and were airlifted from a hospital in nearby Greenville to a larger medical center in the state capital, Jackson, Simmons told The Associated Press. He was briefed on developments from law enforcement authorities in the Delta.
On Saturday, pieces of tattered yellow crime scene tape were wrapped around a pole in the city’s small downtown. The police tape could also be seen outside a locked storefront, tangled at the base of a sign commemorating the late soul singer Tyrone Davis, who was born nearby.
The crime scene was not far from City Hall, where family members gathered to search for answers. Media were not allowed entry.
“People were gathering and having a good time in downtown Leland,” Simmons said of the town of fewer than 4,000 residents.
He was told that after the shooting, the scene was “very chaotic,” with police, sheriff’s deputies and ambulances “intervening from everywhere.”
“It’s just senseless gun violence,” he said. “What we’re experiencing right now is just a proliferation of guns going around.”
No arrests have been announced and Simmons said Saturday morning that he had not heard any information about possible suspects.
One witness, Camish Hopkins, described seeing people injured and bleeding from various parts of their bodies, as well as four people dead on the ground.
“It was the most horrible scene I have ever seen,” Hopkins told The Associated Press after the meeting at City Hall.
Police shouted at people to stay behind crime scene tapes amid the chaos, Hopkins added.
“No one was really trying to help,” Hopkins said. “Leland failed Leland yesterday, but I know we can do better because it’s not Leland.”
Another shooting in eastern Mississippi leaves 2 dead
Meanwhile, police in the small eastern town of Heidelberg are investigating a back-to-school weekend shooting in that community that left two people dead.
Both were killed on the school campus Friday evening, Heidelberg Police Chief Cornell White said. He declined to say whether the victims were students or provide other information about the crimes.
“Right now we still have a topic in general, but I can’t give specifics,” White said Saturday morning.
An 18-year-old man was wanted for questioning in connection with the Heidelberg shooting, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The sheriff asked anyone with information to contact the police chief or the sheriff’s office.
The Heidelberg shooting happened on the school campus where the Heidelberg Oilers were playing their homecoming football game Friday night. The town of about 640 people is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southeast of the state capital, Jackson.
It is unclear when the shooting occurred or how far from the stadium it was. White said he was at the scene Saturday to investigate and more information may be released in the coming days.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is assisting local and federal law enforcement in the investigation, the governor said.
“Our state is praying for the victims and their families, as well as the entire Heidelberg and Leland communities,” Reeves said in a social media post. “Those responsible will be brought to justice.”
Third shooting under investigation, sheriff says
In Sharkey County, Mississippi, also in the Mississippi Delta region, the local sheriff was investigating another shooting after a high school football game in the area, authorities said.
Two people were arrested in the shooting, which happened at a local school after Friday night’s game, Sharkey County Sheriff Herbert Ceaser Sr. said in a statement.
The statement did not contain any information about possible injuries, but said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family during this incredibly difficult time.” The sheriff could not immediately be reached for further information.
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Associated Press writer Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colo., contributed.
