2 dead, 35 hurt in shooting at Georgia small town block party, GBI says

A mass shooting in the small South Georgia town of Vienna left two people dead and injured 35 more early Sunday morning, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Gunfire broke out at a neighborhood block party around 1:30 a.m. Sunday on the 900 block of Pine Street, a residential area just off of the downtown, the GBI said in a news release. Two people were found dead down the street at the 600 block, the GBI said.

Dooly County Coroner Brett Walls, reached by phone Sunday morning, said two men, 20 and 23, were killed in the shooting. He is not releasing their identities at this time, but the families have been notified, he said.

Walls said he responded to the chaotic scene, where he estimates dozens of people were struck by bullets, and roughly a dozen others were injured while trying to flee the scene. Officials estimated around 1,000 people were at the party when the gunfire erupted, and law enforcement on scene heard multiple gunshots, he said.

“This doesn’t — it’s not supposed to — happen in a small town like that. It’s something you hear on the news in bigger cities,” Walls said. “And even in bigger cities, you don’t hear that kind of a number.”

Local hospitals were flooded with people, he added.

The GBI said multiple victims were shot and taken to the hospital, but it’s not clear how many of the 35 injured were struck by bullets.

Vienna, nearly an hour drive south of Macon, has a population of just under 3,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The town was celebrating the local high school football team’s big win at the homecoming game Friday night, which the Dooly County School System posted about on its website.