Georgia homecoming shooting kills two, injures dozens in Vienna

The Georgia homecoming shooting unfolded in the early hours of Sunday in Vienna, a small town in Dooly County, where a crowded neighborhood block party turned chaotic shortly after 1:25 a.m. Two men were killed and 35 other people were injured as gunfire broke out across two stretches of Pine Street, with more than 1,000 people gathered for the celebration, according to the Dooly County sheriff and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Two scenes a block apart

Deputies were already patrolling near the party when the first shots rang out. Sheriff Craig Peavy said more than 50 shots were fired at no fewer than two locations, roughly a block apart, sending the crowd running in every direction. Deputies who responded to the 900 block of Pine Street also found two people dead in the 600 block, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

The two men who died were named as Jaquevion Jackson, 21, of Cordele, and Macaleb Jackson, 23, of Hawkinsville. The injured range in age from 14 to 51, and their conditions run from stable to critical, officials said. Most suffered gunshot wounds, while others were hit by vehicles or hurt in the rush to get away, according to authorities. The wounded include teenagers as young as fourteen.

Investigators have no motive and no suspects

In the hours after the Georgia homecoming shooting, authorities said they had named no suspects and had no motive for the attack. They added that they did not believe a continuing threat to the public remained. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is leading the case alongside local deputies, and the file will go to the Cordele Judicial Circuit district attorney once the investigation is complete. "We don't want to presume as to what caused it," GBI director Chris Hosey said at a news conference, according to Reuters.

The shooting happened over homecoming weekend for Dooly County High School, and the gathering came at the end of a week of homecoming celebrations, according to Reuters. Dooly County School System superintendent Sherrod Willaford stressed the gathering was a neighborhood event, not a school-sponsored one. Deputies had been on hand to monitor the crowd before the shooting began, and more gunfire erupted about a block away even as officers were responding, CNN reported. "We don't know if it's coming at us or someone else," Peavy said. "You just have to keep doing what you're doing and hope you don't get hit by gunfire."

A town left with questions

Vienna sits about 130 miles south of Atlanta, a rural community where a gathering of this size is rare. Investigators spent Sunday piecing together the sequence of events across the four-block stretch where the party had taken place, and the injured were taken to several regional hospitals, according to CNN. Some of the wounded were in critical condition Sunday evening while others were stable, Peavy said.

The Dooly County sheriff's office called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation within hours, and the GBI took the lead on the case. Hosey said investigators do not yet know whether the gunfire at the two scenes was connected or how many people fired the shots, and the bureau has released no descriptions of suspects or persons of interest. Peavy described deputies caught between responding to the first shooting and fresh gunfire a block away, with people running "every direction" around them. The Georgia homecoming shooting remains an open investigation, and officials say the review of evidence from both scenes is still underway.

Hosey said the bureau was still sorting out how many of those hurt had actually been shot. "We're still trying to work through that," he said during an evening news conference. For Dooly County, the questions are immediate: who fired the shots, and why. The Georgia homecoming shooting remains under active investigation, and officials say the answers will come only after the GBI completes its review. Officials have released no timeline for when the investigation will conclude, and the bureau says it will not speculate about what caused the shooting until the evidence is in.