Dozens of people were injured and at least six people died in mass shootings as gun violence broke out at nightlife districts in half a dozen cities across the country over the Halloween weekend.
Police in Dallas, the site of the deadliest violence, said four people are dead and 15 others were injured following a handful of shootings in the city's Deep Ellum neighborhood, a center of music, restaurants and nightlife in the city. Police in college towns
like Fayetteville, Arkansas; Birmingham, Alabama; and Newark, Delaware, also reported shootings in their nightlife districts this weekend.
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said investigators are still trying to determine if the shootings Saturday night over the span of about an hour and 15 minutes were related.
Comeaux said three separate shootings occurred, and it wasn't immediately known why they started. Comeaux said some arrests were made but he didn’t specify how many or what charges were involved.
“This is a really big scene. It's spread out,” Comeaux said. “We are interviewing some individuals right now that we have arrested, still trying to figure out exactly how it ties into all the shootings out here.”
The department had increased police presence in the district before the shootings. No police officers were injured.
Separately, one person was killed and eight others were wounded in a mass shooting just outside Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, after the annual ‘Magic City Classic’ football game on Saturday night, police said.
Michael Pickett, chief of the Birmingham Police Department, said most spectators and families had left the stadium property after the game, but the shooting happened nearby, where vendors were set up along Graymont Avenue.
He said he was “very grateful that more people weren’t injured.”
The circumstances of the shooting were unclear.
Police spokesperson De'Rell Freeman said one person had been detained and transported to police headquarters for questioning, and “multiple weapons” had been found and secured.
Alabama State and Alabama A&M are historically Black universities and archrivals whose annual contest has been played for more than 100 years. Nearly 70,000 fans attended Saturday's game, won by Alabama A&M 31-28. The event draws some of the largest crowds in the country for games played in their college football division.
The Magic City Classic has such a deep history that Alabama State coach Eddie Robinson Jr., a former NFL linebacker and alumnus of the school, proposed creating a Hall of Fame for the game.
In Newark, Delaware, six people were shot late Saturday near the University of Delaware campus, Newark police Lt. Greg D’Elia said. All six were transported to hospitals for treatment, police said early Sunday. No updates on their condition were available as of Sunday afternoon. Messages to university relations and police were not immediately returned.
Video shared on social media showed people running for safety from the scene. One stretch of the city's Main Street was closed for several hours after the shooting, police said.
A shooting early Sunday in Bloomington, Illinois, left a 19-year-old woman dead and another woman in critical condition. Six others had injuries that were not life-threatening, but it was unclear from a statement by the city's police department and McLean County Coroner’s Office if those people had gunshot wounds. The shooting happened near the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University. Bloomington is about 135 miles (217 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
And in Fayetteville, Arkansas, six people were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds from a shooting that happened early Sunday. No arrests have been made, police said in a news release. A preliminary investigation indicates an altercation preceded the shooting.
On Friday, two people were killed in separate shootings at Spirit Halloween stores in California and Michigan.
Police said a shooting inside a store at an indoor shopping mall in Fairfield, California was a targeted attack. Family members told police that the 31-year-old woman who died was pregnant. Six other people were wounded, police said.
In Madison Heights, Michigan, just north of Detroit, a 21-year-old man was fatally shot Friday afternoon at a Spirit Halloween. Another man who was assaulted by bystanders as officers took him into custody was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.
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Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia. AP reporter Claudia Lauer contributed from Philadelphia.
