Four people have been killed and multiple people injured during a shooting in Alabama on Saturday night, police said.
WRBL-TV reported the shooting occurred at a dance studio in Dadeville during a possible birthday party.
The station showed images of crime scene tape around the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio and neighbouring buildings and a heavy police presence.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said the shooting happened at about 10.30pm. There was no initial confirmation about what led to the shooting and it was not immediately known if a suspect was in custody.
“This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians. Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said in a statement posted on social media.
Dadeville is about 57 miles northeast of Montgomery, Alabama. The town has a population of around 3,000.
There have been 163 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the independent group Gun Violence Archive. It is the equivalent of 1.5 times mass shootings every day so far this year.
The group defines a mass shooting as an incident in which more than four people are killed, excluding the shooter.
It comes just hours after two people were killed when a gunman opened fire in a park in Louisville, Kentucky.
It followed a separate incident in the city days earlier in which a bank employee shot dead five colleagues and wounded nine other people at his workplace.
On March 27, three 9-year-olds and three staff members were killed at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, by a former student.
