Shooting erupts at Arkansas car show leaving one dead, 24 injured

One person is in custody following Saturday evening shooting

One person has been killed and 24 people were injured after gunfire erupted at a car show in southeast Arkansas.

The shooting took place around 7.25pm on Saturday in Dumas, a small town about 90 miles south of Little Rock.

State troopers and local police responded to reports of multiple shots being fired into a crowd outside a business in Dumas’s town centre.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said the crime scene stretched across the small town, which has a population of 5,000 people.

Mr Sadler told USA Today on Sunday that “one suspect is in custody and a search is continuing today for others who may have been firing into the crowd of people”.

Shots allegedly “swept the crowd” at a business, identified by Fox 16 KLRT as the Mad Butcher supermarket along the I-65 highway.

Police said that 24 people were injured and one person had been killed. The victims, are believed to include a number of children.

Some of the wounded were taken to medical centres in Dumas, including Delta Memorial and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Others were flown by helicopter to other trauma facilities.

Mr Sadler said more arrests were possible. The identity of the one person who has been arrested has not been released.

Wallace McGehee, the organiser of an annual car show, called the shooting a “tragedy”. He also expressed his condolences to the victims’ families.

“For something like this to happen, it’s a tragedy,” Mr McGehee told KATV. “We did this here for 16 years without a problem.”

According the website of the Delta Neighborhood Empowerment Youth Organization, the annual car show helps raise funds for scholarships and school supplies in the town.

Chris Jones, a Democrat candidate for Arkansas governor who had attended the car show, later tweeted: “I am deeply saddened (and honestly angered) by this tragedy.”

Arkansas State Police said: “Special Agents of the state police Criminal Investigation Division have worked through the night interviewing victims and witnesses.”

The troopers are also working to “restore calm to the community and securing the crime scene along US Highway 65 which runs through the center of the southeast Arkansas town.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press