Michigan splash pad shooting injures 9, including 8 year old child; ‘Gut punch’

As many as 9 people, including children, were shot and wounded at a city-run water park near Detroit on Saturday evening, police said, calling the incident random gunfire. The suspect was still at large late on Saturday, but police said they believed he was cornered in a house nearby. The gun was found at the scene, police said.

Multiple injuries reported in shooting at Detroit area Water Park

A man got out of a vehicle in front of Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, about 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) and fired about 30 shots from a 9mm semiautomatic Glock, reloading several times, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told a press conference.

It was not immediately clear if there were any fatalities, said police, who had initially reported five people shot. Sheriff Bouchard reported that the victims were taken to various hospitals, but their conditions were not yet known. He mentioned that at least one of the victims was an 8-year-old child.

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9 Shot at Splash Park in Michigan

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 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. "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." (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by William Mallard).

Social media was inundated with photos showing a worrisome situation at a park. A large number of police officers and emergency medical workers were gathered around a splash pad. From the pictures, it appears medical personnel were assisting someone lying on the wet ground of the splash pad, while officers kept onlookers at a distance.