Four dead in Alabama birthday party shooting

At least four people were killed and 28 wounded in a shooting that erupted during a late-night "Sweet 16" birthday celebration at a dance studio in the small town of Dadeville in Alabama.

Some of the injured were critically wounded during the shooting in east-central Alabama, about 100 km northeast of the state capital of Montgomery, authorities said.

There was no official word on what led to the gun violence.

Authorities said the shooting started shortly after 10:30 PM CT on Saturday (7:30 AM Sunday UAE time) but they declined to answer questions or provide further details during two news conferences.

Officials said there was no longer any threat to the community but did not say whether a suspect has been killed or arrested.

"We're going to continue to work in a very methodical way to go through this scene, to look at the facts, and ensure that justice is brought to bear for the families," said Jeremy Burkett, a sergeant with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

The Montgomery Advertiser newspaper reported that one of the four people killed during the violence was a high school football player who was among those attending his sister's "Sweet 16" birthday party when a gunman opened fire.

The newspaper, quoting the victim's grandmother, identified the slain teenager as Phil Dowdell, whom she said was set to graduate in a matter of weeks and planned to attend Jacksonville State University on a football scholarship.

The party was being held inside the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio, converted from an old bank building located about half a block from city hall in Dadeville, a town of about 3,200 residents.

Hundreds of community members gathered early on Sunday evening in a parking lot a few blocks from the shooting scene for an outdoor prayer vigil.

The bloodshed in Alabama marked the third high-profile mass shooting in as many weeks in the US South, following separate outbreaks of deadly gun violence in Tennessee and Kentucky that prompted local leaders to call for tighter gun control measures.

Dadeville itself was shaken by at least one prior mass shooting in August of 2016, when a gunman wounded five people during a party at an American Legion hall, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

"What has our nation come to when children cannot attend a birthday party without fear?" President Joe Biden said in a statement on Sunday.

Biden called the rising gun violence in the US "outrageous and unacceptable," and urged the US Congress to pass laws to make firearms manufacturers more liable for gun violence, ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and require safe storage of firearms and background checks for gun sales.