Three people were killed and three others were wounded in a shooting on a residential street just outside Fredericksburg, Va., on Tuesday, the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office said.
The sheriff’s office said in a statement that it had arrested and charged four people, ages 16 to 18, early Wednesday in connection with the shooting. Officials said they believed the shooting was linked to an illegal gun sale and robbery.
“All suspects” were in custody and there was “no threat to public safety,” the sheriff’s office said on social media.
The shooting was reported around 5:30 p.m. on Olde Greenwich Circle, a street of modest townhouses in Spotsylvania County about 60 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office said that the victims included Chase Feaster and Alonzo Goffney, both 18. It did not name the third victim, a 20-year-old man, because his identity was still being confirmed by the medical examiner’s office.
The injured were taken to area hospitals, the sheriff’s office said on Tuesday.
It named one of the suspects, Jeremiah Upson, 18. The office did not disclose the names of the others, but said they included two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old.
The four were charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in committing a felony and unlawful assembly, according to the statement. One 16-year-old suspect was in the hospital with a gunshot wound; the other three were being held without bond.
Fredericksburg City Public Schools delayed the start of classes by two hours on Wednesday, citing “the profound impact this incident has had on members of our school community.”
Reports of the shooting drew a heavy police response. A video posted on social media showed officers marching through a wooded area with their guns drawn.
Andrea Staples, a receptionist at Strictly Ballroom, a dance studio in a shopping plaza near Olde Greenwich Circle, said a student had called at around 6:30 p.m. after leaving class to alert them to the shooting and the shelter-in-place advisory.
“I locked the door and went and checked the back,” Ms. Staples said.
A class was in session at the time, she said, and the students sheltered in place until about 8 p.m.
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