Two teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were arrested on Sunday in connection with a shooting that left five members of the same family dead in the town of East St Louis, Illinois, according to a report by the Guardian, citing state police.
The director of the Illinois State Police, Brendan Kelly, said at a press conference that the suspects had been taken into custody at Holten Park, east of the city, and that formal charges had not yet been filed against them. The attack was described as a 'targeted shooting'.
In addition to the five killed, two other people were injured in the attack and were taken to a hospital in nearby St Louis, Missouri. The police released the identities of the victims: the deceased family members were between the ages of 21 and 74. According to Kelly, at least one of the suspects is related to one of the victims, and the shooting took place at three locations in the city. None of those involved were passers-by.
Kelly declined to comment on how the minors had obtained the weapons. Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the US, but East St Louis is located on the border with Missouri, a state where no permit is required to buy or carry a firearm.
According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, as reported by the Guardian, this is the twelfth mass shooting in the US this year, with more than 240 mass shootings recorded in the country since the beginning of the year.
