Nine people, including two children, have been shot and wounded at a city-run water park near Detroit in what appeared to be a random attack, police have said.
Two children were among the victims, including an 8-year-old who was shot in the head and is in critical condition, after a shooter opened fire at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park, where families had gathered to escape the summer heat.
A man got out of a vehicle in front of the park, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, at about 5 pm local time and fired from a 9mm semiautomatic Glock, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. Law enforcement tracked the suspect to a home, where he died by suicide, authorities said.
Bouchard said the shooting appeared to be random, with the shooter driving up to the park, walking to the splash pad and firing as many as 28 times, stopping multiple times to reload.
In the chaos, “People were falling, getting hit, trying to run,” Bouchard said. “Terrible things that unfortunately all of us in our law enforcement business have seen way too much.”
The gunman was “apparently in no rush. Just calmly walked back to his car,” the sheriff said.
Police heard the 911 call reporting the shooting as it came in, Bouchard said, because the agency uses a service that simultaneously sends emergency calls to first responders. An officer was at the scene within two minutes, he said.
Bouchard said the first deputies who arrived immediately began providing first aid including tourniquets. Officers also were able to quickly come up with a likely address, and a car matching the suspect’s vehicle was at the residence.
Deputies surrounded the home and tried to make contact with the suspect inside to no avail, Bouchard said. After deploying a drone, they eventually entered the home and found the suspect dead inside.
Another weapon was found in the home, and the quick containment of the suspect may have prevented a “second chapter” to the shooting, the sheriff said.
The suspect does not live in Rochester Hills and investigators do not yet know why he went to the splash pad, according to Bouchard.
A handgun and three empty magazines were recovered at the scene of the shootings, the sheriff said.
Police cordoned off the area with tape, and dozens of yellow evidence markers lay on the ground among colorful folding chairs.
“When I got on scene I started to cry because I know what a splash pad is supposed to be,” Rochester Hills mayor Bryan Barnett said – a place where people gather and have fun.
The shooting was a reminder “that we live in a fragile place,” Barnett said.
Rochester Hills is about 30 miles (50 km) north of Detroit. The neighboring community, Oxford Township, also in Oakland County, was the scene of a 2021 mass school shooting in which student Ethan Crumbley, then 15, killed four students and wounded six other students and a teacher at Oxford High School.
“It’s a gut punch, obviously, for us here in Oakland County,” Bouchard said. “We’ve gone through so many tragedies, you know. We’re not even fully comprehending what happened at Oxford.”
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said on X, “I am heartbroken to learn about the shooting in Rochester Hills.”
In the US as of Saturday, there had been more than 215 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The nonpartisan online resource defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are wounded or killed.
Such a high rate of mass shootings in the US has prompted calls to Congress for lawmakers to pass more substantial gun-control measures, but such requests have largely gone unheeded.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
