Police Believe Baton Rouge Nightclub Shooting Was “Targeted”: 12 people were hurt in a mass shooting early on Sunday at a nightclub in Baton Rouge as a targeted attack spread into crowds of revelers, according to authorities.
Around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, gunfire broke out inside the Dior Bar and Lounge, a modest structure in a busy neighborhood just off College Drive. At a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul announced that nine persons had non-life-threatening injuries and three others were in serious condition.
Paul stated, “We believe someone was purposefully targeted, and others were hurt as a result.” Other high-profile mass shootings that have occurred recently in the US involved shooters randomly shooting people in establishments like nightclubs and schools.
Although Baton Rouge continues to struggle with a high rate of homicides, many of which are caused by people who use weapons to settle personal or group disputes, the targeted character of the Dior shooting represents a trend in the city.
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After the shooting started on Saturday night, three city police officers stationed in the club’s parking lot immediately secured the area. According to Paul, they hurried to treat some of the injured before emergency services arrived. The police have not named a suspect.
If any of the victims who were shot were intended, the targets of the attack were not immediately apparent. When asked if authorities knew how many persons opened fire at the club, a commander of the homicide section of the Baton Rouge Police Department declined to respond. Although they claimed to have identified the weapon used, officials also refused to comment on the type of firearm used in the incident.
A guarded entrance to the club was littered with many pairs of shoes, wristbands, disposable gloves, and party posters as evidence of the mayhem at the modest, black structure on Bennington Avenue, which is close to hotels and restaurants. Some flyers were lying around that promoted a party on Monday night.
In a statement released on Sunday, Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome called the killing “a terrible act of violence that will not go unnoticed.” According to Broome, I spent the night at the hospital with Chief Paul and the BRPD team. “Law enforcement is looking into the case to prosecute the offenders.”
The East Baton Rouge Alcoholic Beverage Control office has launched an inquiry into the club’s operations, including how security at the establishment permitted people to allegedly bring guns into a popular nightclub, separate from the criminal investigation into the shooting. On Sunday, it was unable to reach the club’s owners immediately.
The recent mass shooting was the second in the country in a short period. Late Saturday, at a Lunar New Year event in Monterey Park, California, a shooter murdered ten people. According to investigators, it injured another 10, and then he may have tried — but failed — to target a second dance hall.
The substantial Asian American population in Monterey Park was shaken by the shooting, which was the fifth mass murder in the country this month. Since May 24, 2022, when 21 people were slain in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, it was also the deadliest incident.
The Baton Rouge area has experienced at least six mass shootings in the last three years; throughout this time, the city and region have tried to control the escalating gun violence. The Dior club shooting was the latest of these.
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Nine individuals were hurt in an early-morning shooting in Baton Rouge in October close to the campus of Southern University. The fraternity home, crowded with revelers and where gunfire was heard overnight, was described by students as a scene of confusion and disorder.