Two people were killed and a third wounded in a church shooting in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, Thursday night, Police said. A suspect, who hasn’t been named, is in custody.
The Vestavia Hills Police Department said it received a call of an active shooter at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church at approximately 6:22 p.m. local time.
On Thursday night, Vestavia Hills police Capt. Shane Ware told reporters three people were shot. Two died and a third was being treated at a hospital.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued a statement late on Thursday condemning what she called the shocking and tragic loss of life.
“This should never happen – in a church, in a store, in the city or anywhere,” she wrote.
The attack follows a string of gun killings in the US, including in May the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at a primary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the killing of 10 people by a racist gunman in Buffalo, New York. Both attackers wielded semi-automatic assault rifles in those attacks. There have been 268 mass shootings in the US so far in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
