Halloween shootings leave at least 24 dead, 94 wounded nationwide

Three shootings early on the morning of Nov. 1 left at least four dead and 15 injured in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, officials confirmed Sunday.

The hail of Texas gunfire was part of a wave of violence on Halloween that left at least 24 dead and 94 wounded across the country, according to police statements. The shootings stretched from California to Delaware. They unfolded at nightclubs, costume stores, outside stadiums and near college campuses.

The violence came as the nation celebrated Halloween, a holiday that mixes costume-clad revelers with alcohol consumption and drug use. Those ingredients, coupled with access to firearms, can lead to violence, experts say.

It is unknown whether this weekend’s violence was outsized for recent holiday weekends, but previous studies have shown spikes in violence on Halloween.

For instance, Oct. 31 ranks as the third-most violent day of the year, following only July 4 and Jan. 1, according to an analysis of FBI incident data for Boston from 2005 to 2009 by James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University.

For minors, Oct. 31 is the most dangerous day of the year, he said.

In Detroit, a 5-year-old still in her Halloween costume was struck in her chest by a bullet as she played in the backroom of her house after a night of trick-or-treating, Arnold Williams, deputy chief of the Detroit Police Department, said at a news briefing.

“She had to tell her mom, ‘I think I’ve been shot,’” he said. The 5-year-old is in stable condition.

At a costume store in Northern California, a gunman killed a pregnant mother of four and injured six others, including two teenagers who were in critical condition Saturday.

One person was killed and eight people were injured outside Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, where Alabama A&M played Alabama State earlier in the day.

About 600 miles north, in Bloomington, Illinois, officers assisted eight gunshot victims near the Illinois Wesleyan University campus. A 19-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Seven others were transported to area hospitals, and one of them remains in critical condition, according to the Bloomington Police Department.

As officers responded in Illinois, police in Bloomington, Indiana, about 200 miles southeast, heard gunfire erupt from a large crowd near the campus of Indiana University, which was celebrating homecoming in addition to Halloween.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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