Two dead, more than 20 injured in Florida shooting
Police tape blocks the scene of a shooting near a billiard's club that was rented for a concert after three gunmen killed two people and injured 20 overnight in the Hialeah area of Miami Dade county on May 30, 2021. (Photo: AFP/Eric Baradat)
MIAMI: Two people were killed and more than 20 injured in a shooting outside a concert in Hialeah, a town to the north of Miami in Florida, police said early on Sunday (May 30).
"I am at the scene of another targeted and cowardly act of gun violence, where over 20 victims were shot and 2 have sadly died," Miami-Dade police director Alfredo Ramirez III said in a tweet.
The mass shooting happened during the early hours at a billiards hall. The venue was "hosting a scheduled event and several patrons were standing outside", Miami-Dade Police Department said in a statement.
When a Nissan Pathfinder SUV approached the scene, it added, "three subjects exited the vehicle and began shooting indiscriminately into the crowd".
The trio then got back in the car and fled the scene.
When first responders arrived, they found two people dead, according to the statement.
At least 20 injured people ended up in hospital, with at least one in a critical condition.
"These are cold blooded murderers that shot indiscriminately into a crowd and we will seek justice," said the police director in his tweet.
READ: Biden attempts to tackle US gun violence 'epidemic'
43,000 GUN-RELATED DEATHS
The Florida mass shooting is one of a number that have taken place in the past few weeks in the United States.
There were at least 200 mass shootings in the country in the first 132 days of this year, said a report by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group.
Mass shootings have occurred in recent months at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, an office building in California, a grocery store in Colorado and at several spas in Atlanta.
President Joe Biden last month branded US gun violence an "epidemic" and an "international embarrassment".
In March last year, the number of weekly federal background checks on gun buyers surpassed one million for the first time, the New York Times reported. Then this spring the number hit 1.2 million one week, with many sales going to first-time owners.
There were more than 43,000 gun-related deaths in the country last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo issued an impassioned plea Sunday for action.
"If we don't fully mobilise as a society against it," he said on Twitter, "it will get worse before it gets better."
