Detroit: An armed man shot and injured nine people, including two children, at a water-park near Detroit on Saturday evening before shooting himself after being cornered by police, authorities said.

Authorities called the incident random gunfire and said they cornered the suspect in a house nearby, where he died after shooting himself.

The local sheriff showed an image of a semiautomatic rifle from inside the house to which the unnamed suspect was tracked. A handgun was recovered from the scene of the shooting, officials added. The suspect was described as a 42-year-old man, while the motives for the shooting were not clear.

An 8-year-old boy was in critical condition after being shot in the head while his 4-year-old brother was also wounded but stable. Their mother was in critical condition, too, after being hurt in the abdomen and leg, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters.

The other six victims, all aged 30 or older, were in stable condition according to Bouchard.

The suspect had got out of a vehicle in front of Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park in Rochester Hills, Michigan, about 5pm and fired about 30 shots from a 9mm semiautomatic Glock, reloading several times, Bouchard said in a press conference.

Rochester Hills is about 30 miles north of Detroit. The neighboring community Oxford Township, also in Oakland County, was the scene of a 2021 mass school shooting where 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 on Saturday. “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.”

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2024