RICHMOND, Va. (AP) —
Seven people were shot, two fatally, when gunfire rang out outside a downtown theater in Richmond, Virginia, where a high school graduation ceremony had just ended, causing hundreds of attendees to flee in panic, weep and clutch their children, authorities and witnesses said.
A 19-year-old suspect tried to escape on foot but was arrested and will be charged with two counts of second-degree murder, Interim Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said during a nighttime news conference at which he confirmed the two fatalities.
Five others were wounded by the gunfire outside the state capital’s city-owned Altria Theater, which is across the street from a large, grassy park and in the middle of the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. At least 12 others were injured or treated for anxiety due to the mayhem, according to police.
“As they heard the gunfire, it was obviously chaos,” Edwards said. “We had hundreds of people in Monroe Park, so people scattered. It was very chaotic at the scene.”
Edwards said one of the people who was killed was an 18-year-old male student who had just graduated, while the other was a 36-year-old man who was there for the graduation. Their names were not released, but police believe the suspect, who was not immediately identified, knew at least one of the victims.
Six people were brought to VCU Medical Center and their conditions ranged from serious to critical late Tuesday, VCU Health System spokesperson Mary Kate Brogan said.
Multiple handguns were recovered. Police initially said two suspects were detained, but Edwards said later that they determined one of them was not involved.
Officers inside the theater, where the graduation ceremony for Huguenot High School had been taking place, heard gunfire around 5:15 p.m. and radioed to police stationed outside, who found multiple victims, Edwards said.
School board member Jonathan Young told Richmond TV station WWBT that graduates and other attendees were leaving the building when they heard about 20 gunshots in rapid succession.
“That prompted, as you would expect, hundreds of persons in an effort to flee the gunfire to return to the building,” Young said. “It materialized in a stampede,” he said.
Two people were treated for falls; one juvenile was struck by a car and sustained injuries that were not life-threatening; and nine people were treated at the scene for minor injuries or anxiety, according to police spokeswoman Tracy Walker.
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said the new graduates were outside taking photos with families and friends when the shooting broke out.
The mass shooting, the latest in a nation increasingly accustomed to them, prompted calls for reform.
“The gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis that we must address,” U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, a Democrat whose district includes Richmond, said in a statement. “We cannot continue to live in fear. We must address the root causes of gun violence and pass common sense gun safety policies that protect our communities.”
Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, an ardent gun-rights advocate, said in remarks to news outlets near the scene that the problem lies not with guns but with criminals. “We have to figure out what’s going on in our communities,” she said.
In Florida, a woman accused of fatally shooting her neighbor last week in the violent culmination of what the sheriff described as a 2½-year feud was arrested Tuesday, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, who is white, was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault in the death of Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement.
Authorities came under pressure Tuesday to arrest and charge the woman who fired through her front her door and killed Owens in a case that has put Florida’s divisive stand your ground law back into the spotlight.
In a video posted on Facebook late
Tuesday night, the sheriff said this was not a stand your ground case but “simply a killing.”
Stand your ground and “castle doctrine” cases — which allow residents to defend themselves either by law or court precedent when threatened — have sparked outrage amid a spate of shootings across the country.
In April, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a white man, shot and injured 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell in Kansas City. Yarl mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his younger siblings. Lester faces criminal charges. At trial, he may argue that he thought someone was trying to break into his house.
Missouri and Florida are among about 30 states that have stand your ground laws.
The most well-known examples of the stand your ground argument came up in the trial of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.
At a vigil Monday in Ocala, Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said that she was seeking justice for her daughter and her grandchildren.
“My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her,” Dias said. “She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone.”