An eight-year-old boy is in critical condition after the attack at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park in a Detroit suburb.
At least nine people, including two young children, were injured after being shot at a water park run by the city of Michigan, United States, authorities said.
A gunman opened fire Saturday at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb, where families gathered to escape the summer heat.
Police, who determined the incident was a random shooting, tracked a suspect to a home, where the man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
An eight-year-old boy is believed to be in critical condition after being shot in the head.
The boy's mother is also in critical condition after being wounded in the abdomen and leg, and his four-year-old brother is in stable condition with a leg wound.
The other six victims, all 30 years old or older, were in stable condition. Among them were a woman, her husband and a 78-year-old man.
A man got out of a vehicle in front of the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park in Rochester Hills, Michigan, around 5:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT) and fired about 30 shots with a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, reloading several times, the sheriff said. of Oakland County, Michael. Bouchard said at a news conference.
We had an active shooter at the Auburn splash pad in Rochester Hills. That is still an active crime scene and we potentially have the suspect nearby, but for now we ask people to stay away from the area. We have numerous injured victims. More to follow.
– Mike Bouchard (@MikeJBouchard) June 15, 2024
A witness reported that the attacker appeared to use two guns during the attack, but that has not yet been confirmed.
“People were falling, getting hit, trying to run,” Bouchard said. “Terrible things that unfortunately all of us in our law enforcement business have seen too much of.”
The attacker “apparently was not in a hurry. “He just calmly walked back to his car,” the sheriff added.
'Tragedy'
The suspect did not live in Rochester Hills and investigators still do not know why he went to the splash pad.
Authorities did not release the suspect's name, but police described him as a 42-year-old white man and said they believed he lived with his mother.
In the splash zone, authorities found a pistol, three empty magazines and 28 shell casings. At the home, they recovered a semi-automatic rifle and another handgun believed to have been used by the suspect to take his own life.
Rochester Hills is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit.
The neighboring community Oxford Township, also in Oakland County, was the scene of a mass school shooting in 2021, where student Ethan Crumbley, then 15 years old, killed four students and injured six other students and a teacher. at Oxford High School.
The Oxford Resilience Center, established to help those affected by the 2021 Oxford High School shooting, remains operational and can assist community members, police said.
“Our most fervent hope, at least in their opinion, is that all injured victims make a quick recovery,” Bouchard said. “None of us…anticipated coming into Father's Day weekend with this type of tragedy that will profoundly affect families forever.”
