Hampton, South Carolina, April 18 (BUS): South Carolina authorities are investigating a nightclub shooting early Sunday that injured at least nine people. This is the second shooting incident in the state and the third in the country during the Easter holiday.
The shootings in South Carolina and one in Pittsburgh, in which two minors were killed early Sunday morning, also wounded at least 31 people, according to the Associated Press.
No one was killed in the violence at Kara Lounge in Hampton County, 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Charleston, according to an email from the South Carolina Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating the shooting. A phone call to the nightclub was not answered.
In Pittsburgh, two young men were killed and at least eight people were injured when shots were fired during a party at a short-term rental property. “The vast majority of the hundreds of people at the party were underage,” city police chief Scott Schubert told reporters. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner has identified the two victims as Jayden Brown and Matthew Stevie Ross, both 17-year-olds.
Investigators believed there were multiple shooters, and Schubert said police were processing evidence at up to eight separate crime sites stretching a few blocks around the rented house.
The shooting comes just a day after a shooting in a crowded mall in the South Carolina capital, Columbia, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Sunday’s nightclub shooting. Nine people were shot dead, and five people were injured while trying to flee the scene at the Columbiana Center, Columbia Police Chief WH “Skip” Holbrook said Saturday. The ages of the victims ranged between 15 and 73 years. None of them sustained serious injuries.
“We don’t think this was random,” Holbrook said. We think they know each other and something led to the shooting.
The only person arrested in the mall shooting so far is Gwen M Price, 22, one of three people initially detained by law enforcement as a VIP. Price’s attorney, Todd Rutherford, told the media on Sunday that his client fired a handgun into the mall, but in self-defense. Rutherford said Price faces the charge of illegally carrying a gun because he legally owned one but did not have a permit to carry one.
Columbia Police said on Twitter that a judge on Sunday agreed to let Price leave prison on $25,000 bail. Police said he was due to be under house arrest with an ankle monitor.
“It was unprovoked by him. According to WMBF-TV, Rutherford said he called the police, turned himself in, handed himself over the firearm that was used, and made a statement to the Columbia Police Department. “That’s why he got a $25,000 bond.”
Police said the judge will allow Price to travel from home to work during certain hours each day. Price is forbidden to contact the victims and anyone else involved in the shooting.
South Carolina residents age 21 or older can obtain a gun permit, which as of last year allows them to carry guns openly or concealedly. They must have eight hours of gun training and pass a background check that includes fingerprinting.
The three mass shootings over the Easter holiday add to other gun violence in recent days. Last week, a gunman opened fire on a New York subway car, injuring 10 people. A suspect was arrested the next day. Earlier this month, six people were killed and 12 others injured in Sacramento, California, during a gun battle between rival gangs as bars closed in a crowded downtown area just blocks from the state capitol.
A week ago, a shooting inside a crowded nightclub in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, killed a man and a woman and injured 10 people. And last month, 10 people were killed on spring break in Dallas and several more were injured while trying to escape a shooting.