At least one person was killed and five others were wounded in a shooting at a Waffle House restaurant in Indianapolis early on Monday morning, capping a weekend of US gun violence days after a deadly mass shooting at a celebration for the Kansas City Chiefs’ win in Super Bowl LVIII.
Indianapolis police said they went to the southside Waffle House about 12.30am after a total of six people were shot there. The violence began as an altercation between two groups, but it was not immediately clear if any victims fired shots, authorities said.
Police said a woman taken to hospital in critical condition had died while three men and one woman were recovering from bullet wounds at area hospitals.
“What preliminary [information] we have is this was a disturbance which turned into a fight between two groups of people,” the Indianapolis police captain, Don Weilhammer, said to Fox59. “At least one handgun was recovered on the scene of the Waffle House. Another gun was recovered from [a] car” at a local hospital.
A Waffle House spokesperson said the restaurant chain was referring all questions about the shooting to local law enforcement.
“We are cooperating fully with the ongoing law enforcement investigation into this incident,” Njeri Boss, Waffle House’s vice-president of public relations, said in a written statement.
The shooting came soon after two police officers and a firefighter-paramedic were fatally shot – and another officer was injured – while responding to a domestic violence call early Sunday morning in Burnsville, Minnesota.
The Minnesota shooting began about 2am when police were called to a home where a man, reported to have a gun, was barricaded inside with family members. The man in the home then fired at the first responders as they entered the home, where there were also seven children.
Officials identified the slain officers as officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27. Firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth, 40, was also shot to death.
The suspect was also killed. Several sources identified the shooter as Shannon Cortez Gooden, 38, who reportedly petitioned to have his gun rights restored in 2020 in relation to a 2008 felony assault conviction.
Meanwhile, on Friday, a family court in Kansas City said that two juveniles had been charged in connection with the deadly shooting at the end of a parade on Wednesday celebrating the Chiefs’ recent Super Bowl victory.
Local radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two, was killed in the shooting.
The suspects – who have not been identified because they are minors – are being detained on gun-related and resisting arrest charges. The statement said additional charges were expected.
The police chief, Stacey Graves, said the suspects “hurt innocent people, simultaneously scarring an entire community”, according to a police department statement.
