Three people were killed and at least eight others wounded late on Saturday when someone opened fire from a boat into a crowd gathered at a waterfront bar in a coastal town in North Carolina, authorities said.
It was one of multiple mass shootings – cases in which four or more people are shot or killed – reported in the US in public places heading into Sunday morning.
Elsewhere, in south Texas, seven were shot – two of whom were killed – in a shooting at a casino early Sunday. And in New Orleans, one woman was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting on the city’s popular Bourbon Street, also early on Sunday.
The North Carolina shooting erupted about 9.30pm near a popular stretch of bars and restaurants on Southport’s waterfront, a historic port town about 30 miles (48km) south of Wilmington. Investigators said the assailant piloted a small boat close to shore, stopped briefly and fired into the crowd before speeding away.
Roughly half an hour later, a US coast guard crew spotted a person matching the suspect’s description pulling a boat from the water at a public ramp on nearby Oak Island. The person was detained and turned over to Southport police for questioning, officials said.
Authorities have not identified the suspect or said what might have led to the attack. Investigators from multiple agencies – including the state bureau of investigation and the coast guard – remained on the water and at the scene on Sunday collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.
Officials did not immediately release the names of those killed or provide information on the conditions of those who were wounded.
In Texas, about 12.15am on Sunday, two people died and five more were injured in a shooting at the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle casino in Eagle Pass, near the US-Mexico border, the local news outlet KSAT reported.
Law enforcement early on Sunday was searching for a suspect in the casino shooting, the local county government’s top official, Ramsey English Cantú, said to KSAT. Authorities did not immediately discuss a possible motive in that shooting.
In a separate statement on Facebook, English Cantú said: “More than anything, I ask that we come together to pray for the families of the two victims whose lives were tragically lost in this heinous act.”
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, on the first block of Bourbon Street, the well-known entertainment thoroughfare, a triple shooting killed one woman, wounded two other women and injured a man, local police said. According to Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the slain woman was pronounced dead at the scene while the other three who were wounded were taken a hospital.
New Orleans police did not immediately publicly identify a suspect or discuss a possible motive.
As of Sunday, the 271st day of 2025, there had been more than 320 mass shootings in the US, according to the non-partisan Gun Violence Archive.
Perennially high rates of mass shootings in the US have prompted many to call on federal lawmakers to implement more substantial gun control. But Congress has largely been unable or unwilling to heed those pleas.
