By AL.com staff

AT LEAST FOUR PEOPLE REPORTEDLY KILLED AT BIRTHDAY PARTY SHOOTING IN DADEVILLE, ALABAMA, APRIL 16: Mourners attend a vigil at the First Baptist Church of Dadeville following last night’s mass shooting at the Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio on April 16, 2023 in Dadeville, Alabama. At least four people were shot and killed at a teenager’s birthday party, with as many
as 20 injured, according to published reports. The reports say one of the victims was a Dadeville football player bound for Jacksonville State University in state. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

The shooting at a birthday party in Dadeville on Saturday night that left four dead and as many as 20 injured is the latest among nine dozen mass shootings in Alabama since 2013, according to one group that tracks gun violence.

Details of the Dadeville shooting were not available from authorities early Sunday afternoon about what happened, why it happened, identities of the victims, or status of any shooting suspects.

While the government does not define a mass shooting and there is no single, universally agreed-upon definition, many researchers define the term as one shooting in which four or more people are injured.

Mass shootings under that definition have been on the rise around the United States with 647 in 2022 – down from 690 the year before but up from 336 in 2018. And Alabama has seen its share in the past decade.

Gun Violence Archive, which describes itself as an independent research and data collection group, was started in the fall of 2013 to provide information about gun violence. It also defines a mass shooting as four or more shot and/or killed in a single event.

Under that definition Alabama has had 109 mass shootings, with 118 killed and 443 injured, since July 2013, according to the group. (Note: The Gun Violence Archive currently shows 16 injuries in Sunday’s Dadeville shooting. That number could change.)

In one of the most recent Alabama mass shootings, in January three people were wounded and two killed in a surprise 21st birthday party at a Madison County strip mall, where hundreds of rounds of ammunition were fired, according to authorities.

Among the other Alabama mass shootings over the past decade are:

One shooting that didn’t make the Gun Violence Archive’s list was the church shooting in Vestavia Hills in June 2022 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church that killed three. A 70-year-old man started shooting during a church potluck, killing 84-year-old Walter “Bart” Rainey, 84-year-old Jane Pounds and 75-year-old Sarah Yeager.

Alabama ranks third in the nation in the rate of homicides per capita and fifth in the rate of gun deaths per capita, according to CDC data from 2020.

Among the more notorious murder/mass shooting cases prior to 2013 were:

Jan. 29, 2012: Five people were found shot to death in Birmingham’s Ensley Highlands neighborhood. Those killed were: Charles “C.J.” Render, 21; Ronnie Render, 42; Jonathan Sanchez, 23; Jeffery Davis Jr. 23; and Demetrius Sanders, 19. At least four of the five were shot execution-style in the head, and were found in one bedroom stripped of their clothes.

Feb. 12, 2010: University of Alabama in Huntsville professor Amy Bishop killed three people and wounded three others in a shooting on February 12, 2010. During a routine meeting of the biology department attended by about 12 people, Bishop stood up and began shooting those closest to her with a 9-millimeter handgun. Killed were: Killed were professors Adriel Johnson, Maria Ragland Davis and Gopi Podila. Three others were injured in the shootings.

March 10, 2009: Ten people were killed, including the gunman, and six wounded in Coffee and Geneva Counties in the worst mass shooting in Alabama history by a lone gunman who had a list of employers “who had done him wrong,” including the nearby sausage plant he quit days before spree and a metal factory where he shot himself. The shooter committed suicide.

Oct. 16, 1994: Five people were found dead inside the Changing Times Lounge in north Birmingham’s Druid Hills neighborhood. All five were found face-down, shot execution-style in the back of the head. The bodies of a woman and two men were lying next to each other near the lounge bar. The bodies of the other two victims were lying close to a pool table. Two men convicted in the slayings died while on Death Roy.

MontgomeryMontgomeryHuntsvilleHuntsvilleBirminghamBirminghamMobileMobileTuscaloosaTuscaloosaGadsdenGadsdenDothanDothan

Locations are approximate. The Gun Violence Archive currently shows 16 injuries in the April 2023 Dadeville shooting. That number could change.

Map: Ramsey Archibald  Source: Gun Violence Archive  Get the data  Created with Datawrapper

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