A total of 28 people were injured after a shooting took place at a nightclub in Little Rock, Arkansas early Saturday morning. The youngest victim is a 16-year-old.
Police said the shooting erupted at around 2:30 a.m. A concert was taking place when the shooting occurred. According to police, there was a disagreement among a number of customers at the Power Ultra Lounge nightclub. It then escalated to shooting as there were rivalries in different members of the gangs, and they all had weapons, BBC reported.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said the incident is not terrorism-related.
He also reassured the residents that it was not a planned shooting. It seems that the mayor wanted to assure residents that the Little Rock shooting was not anything like the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida that took place months ago. In that shooting, a total of 50 had died including the shooter.
28 victims, two in critical
Witnesses said around 30 shots were in the span of about 10 seconds. Not all of the victims suffered from gunshot wounds as three of the 28 suffered injuries from the stampede when people rushed out of the night club. They are all expected to survive, but police did not say what the developments of the two people listed in critical condition are.
The youngest victim, 16 years old, was not identified.
Police did not say if the teen suffered injuries from the gunshots or from the stampede.
A total of 11 victims were taken to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center. Most were also discharged on Saturday. Nine were taken to Baptist Health Medical Center. One of the victims who is in critical condition was taken to C.H.I.
St. Vincent Infirmary.
Suspects not yet identified
Lt. Steven McClanahan said they are looking for a number of suspects since they believe the involved people are members of gangs. Police are still investigating whether the gangs involved already had a beef with each other in the past.
Headlining performer had run-ins with the law
Little Rock Police Department Chief Kenton Buckner said they were also concerned that the headlining performer is rap artist Finese 2Tymes. Born Ricky Hampton, Finese 2Tymes had two warrants in the past.
The shooting incident came days after the Ten Commandments statue in front of the Arkansas State Capitol was defaced when a man rammed his vehicle into the monument less than 24 hours after it was erected.
