A suspected gunman was on Sunday shot dead and 22 people were injured after a dispute among rival gangs erupted into gunfire at an all-night arts festival in Trenton, New Jersey, officials said.
One of the shooting victims was a 13-year-old boy who was in extremely critical condition, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri told a news conference, adding that three others were in critical condition.
At least two people opened fire at about 2:45am at the annual Art All Night event in Trenton, about 100km southwest of New York City.
A dead suspect was identified by police as Tahaij Wells, 33, and another suspect, Amir Armstrong, 23, was in police custody.
Of the 22 people injured, 17 were shot, Onofri said, adding that several weapons were recovered from the scene.
Officials believe that the suspect was killed by police and the case is being treated as an officer-involved shooting, Onofri said.
More than 1,000 people are believed to have been at the festival when the violence started.
“It absolutely could have been worse, given the confined space and the number of shots that appear to have been fired,” Onofri told a news conference.
“The shooting appears to be related to several neighborhood gangs from here in the city of Trenton having a dispute at the venue,” Onofri said.
Organizers canceled the remainder of the event, billed as “24 hours of community, creativity and inspiration.”
The festival typically draws more than 30,000 visitors to view work from more than 1,500 artists, as well as exhibitions of glass blowing and woodwork, the Trentonian reported on its Web site.
About 50 bands were to play on three stages.
“We’re still processing much of this and we don’t have many answers at this time but please know that our staff, our volunteers, our artists and musicians all seem to be healthy and accounted for,” the organizers wrote on Facebook. “Our sincere, heartfelt sympathies are with those who were injured.”
The New Jersey shooting occurred amid a debate about US gun laws that was given fresh impetus by the massacre in February of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
“It is a fact that our cities as well as our suburbs throughout America are experiencing an increase in public shootings and public unrest such as this,” Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson told the news conference. “This isn’t just a random act of violence. This is a public health issue.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy spoke at a Trenton church, noting that he signed six gun control bills into law on Wednesday, but adding that the proliferation of guns requires a national solution.
“Congress needs to act,” Murphy said.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the