HAMPTON, SC (AP) — Authorities in South Carolina are investigating a shooting at a nightclub early Sunday that injured at least nine people. It was the second mass shooting in the state and the third in the country during the Easter holiday weekend.
The shootings in South Carolina and one in Pittsburghin which two miners were killed early Sunday, also left at least 31 injured.
No one was killed in the violence at Cara’s Lounge in Hampton County, about 130 miles west of Charleston, according to an email from the Carolina State Law Enforcement Division. du Sud, who is investigating the shooting. A phone call to the nightclub went unanswered.
In Pittsburgh, two young men were killed and at least eight people injured when shots were fired at a party at a short-term rental building. The “vast majority” of the hundreds of people at the party were minors, city police chief Scott Schubert told reporters. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two victims as Jaiden Brown and Mathew Steffy-Ross, both 17 years old.
Investigators believe there were multiple shooters, and Schubert said police are processing evidence at no less than eight separate crime scenes spanning a few blocks around the rental home.
The two shootings come just a day after gunfire erupted at a busy mall in Columbia, South Carolina’s state capital, about 145 miles north of Sunday’s shooting at a box. night. Nine people were shot and five people suffered other injuries while trying to flee the scene at Columbiana Center, Columbia Police Chief WH “Skip” Holbrook said Saturday. The victims were between the ages of 15 and 73. None suffered life-threatening injuries.
“We don’t believe it was random,” Holbrook said. “We believe they knew each other and something led to the shootings.”
the only person arrested So far in the mall shooting is 22-year-old Jewayne M. Price, one of three people initially detained by law enforcement as a person of interest. Price’s attorney, Todd Rutherford, told news organizations on Sunday that his client fired a gun at the mall, but in self-defense. Rutherford said Price was facing a charge of illegally carrying a gun because he legally owned his gun but did not have a license to carry a gun.
Columbia police said on Twitter that a judge agreed on Sunday to let Price out of jail on $25,000 bail. He was to be under house arrest with an ankle monitor, police said.
“It was not instigated by him. He called the police, turned himself in, turned over the firearm that was used, and gave a statement to the Columbia Police Department,” Rutherford said, according to WMBF-TV. “That’s why he got $25,000 bond.”
Police said the judge would allow Price to go to work during certain hours each day. Price is prohibited from contacting the victims and anyone else involved in the shooting.
South Carolina residents age 21 or older can obtain a weapons license, which since last year allows them to carry weapons openly or concealed. They must have eight hours of firearms training and pass a background check that includes fingerprinting.
The three mass shootings over the Easter weekend add to other gun violence in recent days. Last week, a shooter opened fire in a New York subway carinjuring 10 people. A suspect has been arrested the next day. Earlier this month, six people were killed and 12 others injured in Sacramento, California during a shootout between rival gangs as bars closed in a bustling downtown just blocks from the state capitol.
A week ago, a shooting in a crowded night club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, left one man and one woman dead and 10 injured. And last month, 10 people were shot dead in a Spring Break party in Dallas and several others were injured as they tried to escape the gunfire.
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