Three dead and 14 injured in shooting outside Tennessee bar
Shooting is believed to be isolated indicident
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A shooting outside a bar in Chattanooga, Tennessee has left three people dead and 14 injured, according to police.
Two people died from gunshot wounds and another was fatally struck by a fleeing car amid reports of multiple shooters in the early hours of Sunday, according Chattanooga police chief Celeste Murphy.
“We’re trying to determine exactly what happened and what led up to this taking place,” she said on Sunday.
“We extend our condolences and our thoughts to the families that are experiencing this today,” she added.
Some 16 of the victims were adults and one was a minor. In total, fourteen people were shot, while three were hit by vehicles.
The violence is believed to be an isolated incident with no further threat to the community, Chief Murphy said. Authorities will provide another update on the shooting on Sunday afternoon.
Officers were dispatched to the area of the shooting, on McCallie Avenue, around 2.42 am on Sunday, officials said. The area was temporarily cordoned off while police investigate. Investigators are examining physical and video evidence to ascertain what took place.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also assisting the investigation.
In May, six teenagers were injured in a shooting in Chattanooga, with two victims suffering life-threatening injuries.
“That’s outrageous and it has to stop,” the city’s mayor, Tim Kelly, wrote on social media at the time. “It’s ridiculous that I even need to publicly state that guns have no place in the hands of our kids. And that children shouldn’t be wandering around in the middle of the night with no supervision.”
In May, the mayor called for “commense sense reforms” to gun access, including enhanced background checks, red flag laws, and raising the age limit on certain weapons purchases so “children can’t purchase assault rifles”.
The shooting is the latest in a string of shocking gun violence incidents across the country in recent weeks.
On Friday, a 56-year-old named Douglas Uhde allegedly shot a retired judge at his home in Wisconsin, reportedly zip-tying him to a chair and killing him.
Two days before that, a disgruntled patient allegedly shot four people inside a Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital, using a semi-automatic, A5-15-style assault rifle he purchased that day.
The previous week, an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, using the same kind of weapon.
An AR-15-style rifle was also used in May, during a white supremacist mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that killed 10.
The shootings have reinvigorated calls for gun control at the state and federal level, even though Washington has failed to reach a consensus on firearms legislation despite whole decades filled with regular mass shootings going by.
“How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Joe Biden said during a speech this week.
The president called for reinstituting the ban on assault weapons, creating a federal red flag law, and raising the legal age requirement to buy certain weapons.
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have been in talks about a bipartisan guns package, though it’s unclear what provisions they could ultimately agree to.