A 15-year-old boy has been charged in connection with a mass shooting that injured 12 people at a homecoming gathering near Florida Agricultural + Mechanical University (Famu) in Tallahassee, police said.
The Tallahassee police department said on Facebook on Monday that detectives arrested the suspect on Sunday, a day after the gunfire. It named him as Anthony Rivers III. Police do not usually identify suspects who are minors, but the seriousness of the charges made this case an exception. Rivers faces 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a delinquent.
Six adults and six minors were hurt in the attack. All but one of them suffered gunshot wounds. Police said three victims were seriously wounded, and one remained in critical condition in the hospital. Nine others were also shot, while one more person injured an ankle while trying to flee.
The shooting happened shortly before 8pm on Saturday at an intersection near the university's Bragg stadium, where a homecoming football game had just finished. Police chief Lawrence Revell said officers arrived quickly and carried some of the wounded through a dense crowd to safety.
According to police, Rivers opened fire after an altercation between two groups of people who knew each other. Revell said none of the people struck was believed to have been an intended target.
Revell said the investigation is continuing and that more arrests are possible. "What should have been a weekend of celebration in our community instead became a night of fear and violence for the victims and their families," he said. He added that the arrest was a significant step but that the department's work was "far from over," and he pledged to get answers for every affected family.
The chief also thanked residents who gave investigators cellphone video of the shooting and its aftermath, calling the footage "vital to investigative efforts."
The Gun Violence Archive, a nonpartisan resource, counted the Tallahassee attack among five mass shootings across the US over the weekend. It defines such cases as those in which at least four people are wounded or killed. The archive has recorded 386 of them in the country so far this year.
Famu president Marva Johnson posted a video message on X on Sunday condemning the "senseless and despicable" violence. She said the university was giving the police department its full assistance. "Our pride, our identity, and our future will not be defined by the challenges we face, but how we respond to them together," she said.