Police confirm 10 shot in S.C. shooting, one of 14 mass shootings from Memorial Day weekend

At least 10 people were wounded in a mass shooting in South Carolina on Monday night — one of numerous mass shootings that unfolded across the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend.

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said on Tuesday that nearly a dozen people were shot during the gunfire late Monday, with four in critical condition.

A police officer had responded to a loud party after receiving a noise complaint. Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds told reporters, “Immediately the officer took gunfire.”

“Two shots went into his cruiser, and let me tell you something: As we stand here right now, we’re lucky we don’t have a dead cop or dead citizens or dead community members.”

Women embrace at a memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers.
Women embrace at a memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

The mass shooting was one of at least 14 such incidents throughout the country over the holiday weekend, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks such incidents. The group defines mass shootings as “four or more people” shot or killed in one incident, excluding the shooter.

From Saturday until Monday, at least 60 people were reported to have been injured in mass shootings, while nine others were killed, Gun Violence Archive reported. Holiday weekends, especially during the summer, are often associated with spikes in gun violence; some of the shootings from the past weekend occurred at parties.

The grim numbers came less than a week after 21 people — 19 young students and two of their teachers — were slaughtered at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, by a gunman who locked himself in their classroom. Authorities said the gunman legally purchased two AR-style rifles when he turned 18 a week before the attack.

Just days before that shooting, 10 Black people were killed in a racist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. Federal authorities are investigating the mass shooting as a hate crime.

On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Buffalo, where she spoke at the funeral of an 86-year-old who was killed in the attack.

Harris told mourners she wanted a ban on assault weapons, asking them: "Do you know what an assault weapon is? It was designed for a specific purpose: to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war, with no place, no place in a civil society."

On Sunday, President Biden visited Uvalde, where he mourned with the families of those killed. As he left a church service, someone shouted “Do something” at him, to which he replied: “We will.”

During a Memorial Day service at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, the president added: “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody’s getting more rational; at least that’s my hope.”