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Police are investigating a shooting in North Carolina that left multiple people injured and counted a child and an 18-month-old among the victims shot.
Police said the shooting occurred on Saturday at around 9.30pm in downtown Oxford, located about 30 miles northeast of Durham.
When officers arrived on the scene, ABC 11 reported, they discovered six people wounded in the shooting, with the victims ranging in age from 18-months-old to 64 years old. Another child was also reportedly wounded in the shooting, but their age was not disclosed.
All indiuals were taken to a hospital in Oxford, while four of the injured people required transportation by life flight to the nearby hospital.
A city commissioner in the small North Carolina town, which has a population of about 8,600, described the onslaught of bullets that he heard outside his home’s window during the Saturday night shooting.
The area of downtown Oxford, North Carolina is seen in the daytime after a shooting injuries multiple people, including two children, on Saturday
(WRAL TV/ screengrab)
“It was like a warzone. The screaming, the just the horror that was taking place is not something you’d expect to see in a small town,” said Bryan Cohn in an interview with ABC 11.
“On site, police were transporting victims in the back of patrol cars,” he said, according to WRAL TV. “It was an absolute horror scene.”
Other witnesses in the area who heard the shooting unfold described a similar terrifying scene.
“My father called me and he’s right down the road at Walgreens. And he says, ‘Did you hear that?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, I’m actually outside right now,’ described Brandon Moss, a witness. “I was like, ‘was that fireworks?’ He was like, ‘No, that was way too deep to be fireworks.’”
He’d been out with friends on Saturday night and confirmed that the group had heard no fewer than “15 shots” fired.
As for the city commissioner, he conceded that gun violence is a problem that towns and cities across the country are finding themselves confronted with seemingly daily.
But those national statistics do little to assuage the pains of processing a tragedy such as the one the town experienced over the weekend.
“I don’t think there’s words that can possibly describe the level of trauma that this brings to a community,” said Mr Cohn to ABC 11. “To see those things, happen on TV is one thing but to be in the moment and see it unfolding is something that I could never even begin to describe.”
No additional information about the victims has been released at this time and no arrests have been made in relation to the shooting as of Monday morning.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact local investigators or call Crime Stoppers to leave anonymous tips.
