An FBI special agent announced Thursday that nine people have been arrested in connection with the mass shooting in the Mississippi Delta town of Leland, which killed six people.
Robert Eikhoff, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jackson Field Office, attended the briefing but provided no additional information on the latest arrests or the charges they face. Authorities had previously stated that five persons were in custody.
The downtown area where the shooting occurred remained littered with shards of broken glass Thursday afternoon. A street corner nearby was adorned with three teddy animals and a few candles.
State and local law enforcement officials who appeared at Thursday’s news conference urged the public to share their knowledge with authorities.
“We believe there are people who have valuable information who have not yet spoken with law enforcement,” he said.
Several individuals have been charged with capital murder in the shooting last Friday at midnight, which injured more than a dozen people and killed six. Two of the injured are in critical condition, Eikhoff stated.
The FBI’s Jackson Field Office has been publishing photos of persons wanted for questioning in the mass shooting. It happened over homecoming weekend in downtown Leland, immediately after a high school football game.
“It’s still kind of numbness at this point,” Leland Mayor John Lee stated on Thursday. “Families are still hurting and do not have closure right now. We are talking about funerals that have not even been planned yet.”
The incident occurred during a community festival hosted in the small downtown area every year on homecoming weekend, “where everybody will gather in the streets and have a good time,” according to the mayor.
“This is not anything that’s happened anywhere close to our community ever before,” according to him.
The Leland shooting was the bloodiest of three in Mississippi last weekend. Other shootings were reported in two other cities hosting homecoming football games, as well as at Alcorn State and Jackson State universities, both of which were celebrating homecoming weekends.
Authorities have not revealed the suspected motive for the Leland shooting, but the FBI has stated that the gunfire appears to have been “sparked by a disagreement among several individuals.”
Reseann Mitchell stated that she is the mother of Terrogernal S. Martin, 33, who is charged with capital murder. She claimed her son is innocent and was working security at a neighborhood business when the shooting occurred.
“He was standing outside all night, and when the shooting took place, he pushed everyone inside,” Mitchell stated. “When he realized I wasn’t on the inside, he had my purse. He went into my bag and pulled out my revolver to come outside and seek for me.”
Camish Hopkins, a witness, recounted seeing people injured and bleeding, as well as four bodies on the ground.
“It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” Hopkins explained.
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