Two people were shot dead and several wounded by gunfire that erupted in a park in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday (June 6) as high school graduates and their families emerged from a theatre where commencement exercises had just concluded, police said, Reuters reports.
Among the wounded, a 31-year-old man suffered life-threatening injuries and four other males aged 14, 32, 55 and 58 were expected to survive, interim Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said.
Police said they arrested one suspect, a 19-year-old man who knew one of the victims and shot at him amid the crowd that had just emerged from the Huguenot High School's commencement ceremony inside a theatre on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University.
The mass shooting was the United States' 279th in the first 157 days of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, using the definition of four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident, not including the shooter.
