Gorgia shooting: Five, including shooter, killed on outskirts of Douglas, police investigation underway

Gorgia shooting: Four victims and the shooter have died following a potential murder-suicide in a rural Georgia home late Friday night. Officials say those involved were adult family members of the shooter, who died by suicide, and was found in the family's home on the outskirts of Douglas, a small city roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.

“Investigators believe this was an apparent murder-suicide involving immediate family-members who reside in the home,” said Douglas Police Chief Brannen Pruette during a news conference on Saturday.

Officers responded to an emergency call made by one of the victims shortly after 11 p.m. and found a woman alive at the scene. After transport to a nearby hospital, she was pronounced dead, raising the death toll to five.


Earlier in the day, police confirmed that woman made another emergency call and summoned officers to the house.

“It's my understanding the call was placed by the wife, the female victim. She called, and was complaining about the husband who was in the house smoking and she said he was killing her with the smoke,” Pruette said.

Last weekend, two people were killed and 35 injured in a shooting during a block party, celebrating a high-school football game in Vienna, another small city just an hour north of Douglas.

Pennsylvania Shooting

Earlier, a man shot and killed eight people, including two children, at a home in the US state of Pennsylvania before apparently taking his own life, local media reported.

Police in the city of Erie were called Friday around 5:00 pm to reports of shots fired and discovered two women dead in the street, the Erie News Now outlet said.

The shooter barricaded himself inside the home as police surrounded the building and ordered him to exit. More gunshots were heard during the standoff, Erie News Now reported.

When police eventually entered the building they found several more victims around the home, including the two children. The deceased shooter had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the outlet said, citing police.

Erie News Now said that police officers who responded to the scene were being offered counseling over the horrifying incident.

Contacted by AFP, the Erie Police Department declined to comment or confirm the details. The mayor was expected to hold a press conference Saturday afternoon.

Mass shootings occur frequently in the United States, where guns vastly outnumber the population and efforts to increase firearm restrictions face steep political and legal hurdles.