At least three people are dead and 14 are injured after a lone gunman opened fire on Sunday during a video game tournament in Florida that drew professional players from around the world.
The mass shooting occurred at the Madden NFL 19 competition at Jacksonville Landing, a waterfront shopping and dining area in the heart of downtown Jacksonville, Fla.
Jacksonville County Sheriff Mike Williams said officers on Sunday afternoon found three people dead on the scene, including the gunman, who is believed to be a 24-year-old white man from Baltimore.
Williams said the suspect took his own life, but he did not know details of any motive or if the suspect knew the victims.
The gunfire comes six months after a massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead. The Jacksonville rampage is the latest mass shooting to erupt in an otherwise peaceful place — a wave of violence that has extended nationwide — this time at a popular waterfront destination in northern Florida.
Esports tournaments such as the Sunday event involve professional competitors vying for prize money in games streamed to thousands of online spectators. Prominent esports players carry endorsement deals and legions of fans, much like professional athletes do.
The Jacksonville event, in which competitors played a football video game, was a regional qualifier leading to an October final in Las Vegas that was to be broadcast on ESPN, with a top prize of $25,000.
Electronic Arts, the digital interactive entertainment company in charge of the tournament, said it was aware of the shooting and is cooperating with law enforcement.
“This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved,” the company said.
A live-stream allegedly of the competition on Twitch showed a red laser dot briefly appearing on a competitor’s sweatshirt before the camera angle changed and gunshots could be heard. The competitor has not been identified, and it’s unclear whether he was hit.
Danny Flaherty, a 22-year-old gamer from the United Kingdom, said that he heard gunshots and that his “only thoughts” afterward were “to run.”
Another player, Drini Gjoka, said a bullet hit him in the thumb.
“I will never take anything for granted ever again,” he wrote on Twitter. “Life can be cut short in a second.”
Complexity Gaming, the company that sponsors Gjoka, said he ran down the street to a gym.
“We’re obviously shocked and saddened by this afternoon’s events. … He’s currently cooperating with the authorities and we will be flying him out of Jacksonville as soon as we are given the green light from the officials on the ground,” Complexity Gaming founder and chief executive Jason Lake said in a statement.
Reports of the shooting quickly reached the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville, the area’s premier trauma center, which is trained to triage by severity like a military unit sorting through wounded troops on a battlefield. Six male shooting victims in their early- to mid-20s were treated there, four of whom were shot in the torso, said Marie Crandall, the attending trauma surgeon. The two others were shot in the extremities. One victim is in serious condition, but all are expected to survive.
Three other shooting victims, now in stable condition, were treated at Memorial Hospital in southeast Jacksonville, hospital spokesman Peter Moberg said. And one woman who was not shot, but was hurt while fleeing was treated for minor injuries at Baptist Medical Center, spokeswoman Cindy Hamilton said.