LELAND, Miss. (AP) — FBI agents are requesting the public’s assistance in identifying four individuals seen near a mass shooting in a Mississippi Delta town that resulted in six fatalities and over a dozen injuries over the weekend.
On late Sunday, the FBI’s Jackson Field Office released images of the four individuals — one female and three males — featured in surveillance footage and labeled in an FBI notice as “unknown suspects.” Although authorities have not revealed a motive for the Leland shooting, the FBI mentioned that the gunfire seemed to have been ignited by a dispute among several people.
The incident took place during homecoming celebrations in downtown Leland following a high school football game and was the deadliest among numerous shootings in Mississippi on Friday night. Four victims were pronounced dead at the location, leaving behind abandoned shoes and bloodstains on a downtown street the subsequent day.
Eyewitness Camish Hopkins recounted witnessing individuals injured and bleeding from several parts of their bodies and four people lying dead on the ground. “It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” Hopkins informed The Associated Press.
2 others die after separate shooting on state’s east side
In Heidelberg, on the state’s eastern side, authorities discovered the bodies of two people, one of whom was a pregnant woman, on a high school campus Friday night. This shooting coincided with Heidelberg High School’s homecoming football game, according to the police and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. Police have yet to clarify the exact timing of the gunfire or its proximity to the stadium.
In connection with the Heidelberg shooting, an 18-year-old male was apprehended and charged with two counts of murder and illegal possession of a firearm on a school campus, according to Jasper County Jail records.
Heidelberg, a town of about 640 residents, is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southeast of the state capital of Jackson.
