Around nine people were shot when multiple shooters opened fire Sunday night in Glendale, Arizona, police said.
The condition of the wounded following the “chaotic” shooting was not immediately clear, but the area was deemed safe to the public, officer Moroni Menendez, a Glendale police spokesperson, said at a news conference Sunday night.
Menendez said the number of wounded could change, but that there were multiple victims. “What I can confirm is that there are multiple people shot,” he said. “The number is closer to nine now, but it is more than three.”
Multiple reports of a shooting near 57th Drive and Lamar Road started coming in around 7:45 p.m., Menendez said.
An unidentified witness told NBC affiliate KPNX of Phoenix that the restaurant El Camarón Gigante was holding a family-friendly Cinco de Mayo party with dozens of people of all ages in present at the time of the shooting.
The witness had just left the restaurant, he told the station, when he heard more than 20 shots ring out over the course of 15 to 20 seconds. After a roughly 30-second pause, about 10 more shots were fired, he said.
The witness said he applied pressure to the wounds of a woman who had been struck more than once. He also said he saw paramedics “doing pretty heavy-duty chest compressions” on three people, as well as someone conscious and breathing being taken out via stretcher.
Menendez said more than one person opened fire, but there were no immediate arrests. “Quite a few people” were detained, but officers were trying to determine whether they were victims, witnesses or suspects, he said.
No police officers fired their weapons, Menedez said.
He called it an “enormous scene” that would likely take investigators “well until the daytime hours” to clear.
