FBI agents are seeking the public's help identifying four people seen near a mass shooting in a Mississippi Delta town that left six killed and more than a dozen injured over the weekend.
The FBI's Jackson Field Office late Sunday released photos of the four — one female and three males — shown in surveillance video and identified in an FBI poster as “unknown suspects." Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for Friday night's shooting in Leland, but the FBI said the gunfire appears to have been “sparked by a disagreement among several individuals.”
The shooting, which came as people celebrated homecoming weekend in downtown Leland shortly after a high school football game, was the deadliest of several shootings across Mississippi over the weekend. Other shootings were reported at two Mississippi universities on Saturday, as those schools celebrated their homecoming weekends.
Leland shooting is the 14th mass killing in the U.S. this year
In Leland, four of the victims died at the scene, where abandoned shoes were left and blood stained the pavement of a downtown street the following day.
Witness Camish Hopkins described seeing people wounded and bleeding and four people lying dead on the ground. “It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” Hopkins told The Associated Press.
The shooting in Leland was the 14th mass killing in 2025, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killing Database. The database tracks all homicides in the U.S. since 2006 in which four or more people were killed intentionally within a 24-hour period, not including any offender.
2 others die after a separate shooting on state's east side
On the east side of the state, in the small town of Heidelberg, the bodies of two people, including a pregnant woman, were found on a high school campus Friday night. That shooting happened the same evening Heidelberg High School played its homecoming football game, according to police and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves. Police have not said exactly when the gunfire occurred or how close it was to the stadium.
An 18-year-old man was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and illegally having a gun on a school campus in the Heidelberg shooting, Jasper County Jail records show.
Heidelberg, a town of about 640 residents, is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southeast of the state capital of Jackson.
Shootings reported at 2 Mississippi universities
On the Alcorn State University campus in Claiborne County, three people were found with apparent gunshot wounds near a campus building around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said. One of the victims died, the agency said. Police found the victims after a call reporting shots fired in the area of the industrial technology building. No arrests were announced.
The shooting happened after more than 7,000 spectators saw Alcorn State defeat Lincoln University of Oakland, California, in the Mississippi school’s homecoming game Saturday afternoon.
In Jackson, police responded around 7 p.m. Saturday to the tailgating area of Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, where Jackson State University hosted Alabama State University. A juvenile had been shot in the abdomen and was taken to a hospital, police said. No arrests were announced, and few other details about that shooting were immediately available.
Associated Press freelance photographer Katie Adkins in Leland and AP writer Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado, contributed.
