7 people shot at car meetup in Massachusetts

Seven people were shot and another injured at a car meet in northern Massachusetts early Sunday morning, local police said.

The shooting occurred just before 2 a.m. in Methuen, Mass., near the New Hampshire border. Police Chief Scott McNamara said officers arrived at the scene to find seven gunshot victims and an eighth person who suffered a head injury while attempting to flee the scene.

Five of the gunshot victims are in stable condition, while two are in critical condition, authorities said in a Sunday press conference. The victims’ ages ranged from their late teens to early twenties.

“I want to reassure our community that while these spontaneous car club meetups do not generally escalate to this type of violence, our policy has been and always will continue to take law enforcement action whenever appropriate to discourage this activity from occurring in the first place,” McNamara said.

McNamara added that car meetups at abandoned parking lots similar to where the shooting occurred are common sites for underage drinking and have been a law enforcement focus for months.

“In the past, when we found it here in Methuen, we’ve always taken law enforcement action,” he said. “We’ll cite them for trespassing.”

No arrests have been made in connection to the shooting.

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