At least 16 Injured In New Orleans Park Shooting

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At least 16 people have been injured in a gunfight between two groups at a park in New Orleans in the US state of Louisiana, where a crowd of more than 300 had gathered for the making of a music video, local police say. The shooting took place around 7pm local time on Sunday (01:00 GMT on Monday) in Bunny Friend Park in the city’s Upper Ninth Ward.

New Orleans police said witnesses claimed that both groups involved in the shooting ran off immediately after the gunfire. The Times-Picayune newspaper quoted Superintendent Michael Harrison of the New Orleans Police Department as saying that he believed multiple people had fired into the crowd. “I can’t speak to the condition” of all the victims, Harrison said, but “no one has died at this time”.

At least nine victims were taken to University Medical Center New Orleans.  Three witnesses told the Times-Picayune that they saw a man with a silver-coloured machinegun and heard more gunshots coming from within the crowd as he ran away. Several people were lying on the pavement after the shooting, it said.

Tyler Gamble, a police spokesman, told The New York Times that police learned from witnesses that “there were two groups that were firing shots back and forth at each other, and then ran off after each other on foot”. WVUE TV said police believed the shooting stemmed from a fight. Media reports put the number of victims at 10 to 16 and said they had been taken to local hospitals.