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Police are looking for a motive after at least nine people were shot in what appears to be a “random” shooting that sent panicked families fleeing a crowded recreation area in Rochester Hills, Michigan, on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

Police on Sunday identified the gunman as Michael William Nash, 42, from Shelby Township. He pulled up to the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad, left a vehicle and opened fire from roughly 20 feet away, reloading multiple times, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Saturday. The suspect fired “potentially 28 times,” the sheriff said.

“Under no circumstances is it normal for ice cream cones and flip flops to be strewn amongst blood and bullet casings,” said Michigan Rep. John James at a news conference Saturday night.

Nash was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at the home he shared with his mother after police tracked the weapon from the shooting to an address around half a mile from the crime scene, Bouchard said. Police found a rifle on the kitchen table.

Nash didn’t have any previous police contact or criminal record, according to Bouchard.

The victims, including two small children and their mother, were injured in the shooting and taken to four local hospitals with “varying kinds of injuries,” the sheriff said. As of early Sunday morning, two of the victims were in critical condition and seven were in stable condition.

“When I got on scene, I started to cry,” said Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan Barnett on Saturday night. “Because I know what a splash pad is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a place where people gather, where families make memories, where people have fun and enjoy a Saturday afternoon and it wasn’t today.”

An 8-year-old boy is in critical condition after suffering a gunshot wound to the head and his 4-year-old brother was shot in the thigh and is in stable condition, Bouchard said. Their 39-year-old mother, with wounds to the abdomen and leg, was also in critical condition.

Six other gunshot victims, including three women and three men ranging in age from 30 to 78, were in stable condition Saturday night.

The incident appears to be “random” as the suspect has “no connectivity to the victims,” the sheriff said. Authorities are looking into a possible motive but have yet to determine one, he added.

“It’s our understanding that apparently he was undergoing some mental health challenges,” Bouchard said during a news conference Saturday. He did not offer additional details.

The shooting comes at a time when communities are still recovering from two mass shootings in the state in recent years. In February 2023, a gunman killed three Michigan State University students and critically wounded five others. A couple years prior, a teenager killed four students at an Oxford, Michigan, high school in 2021.

“We’re not even fully comprehending what happened at Oxford, and now we have another complete tragedy that we’re dealing with,” Bouchard said.

The shooting extends the list of around 220 mass shootings in the country so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

Bouchard said the gunman arrived at the splash pad and opened fire with a Glock 9 mm handgun.

“It looked chaotic. You could see people kind of just enjoying the day and then it was a scramble,” Bouchard said, referencing video of the shooting. “People were falling, getting hit, trying to run.”

Detectives recovered 28 shell casings at the scene, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

“He started firing once he was out of his car from the base of the steps, climbing the steps, reloading and then was firing from the top of the steps in the splash pad area before he left and appeared to leave in no rush, just calmly walked back to his car,” Bouchard said.

One witness said she first thought there were fireworks going off.

“We were sitting out on the patio and we heard what we thought was firecrackers and I guess it was gunshots because we heard people screaming, like ‘help us, help us!’” Cheryl Delcotto told CNN. “So, we ran around, I called 911, I couldn’t get a hold of anybody because I guess people were already calling.”

The first 911 call alerting police to the incident was made around 5:11 p.m. Bouchard said a Rochester Hills sergeant responded to the scene within two minutes – before the call was dispatched. By that point, the suspect had already fled the scene, according to Bouchard.

Authorities located the handgun and three empty magazines at the scene, the sheriff said.

Delcotto, who was visiting a home near the splash pad when the shooting began, described seeing blood-covered victims and people rendering aid.

“I see people laying on the ground, I seen a guy who was shot in the stomach who was sitting on a chair, an older man,” she said. Then she saw a man whose “son was coming out on a stretcher – with blood all over his face, and it was scary.”

After the shooting, police traced the weapon found at the scene to a nearby home, where they found a vehicle matching a description of the one that drove away from the scene of the shooting, according to the sheriff.

The suspect was not known to authorities until they did a “quick investigation” and determined who they believed was involved based on evidence from the scene of the shooting.

Police had containment on the home within 45 minutes to one hour, according to Bouchard. There was “an acknowledgment that we were there and we heard or saw him,” Bouchard said.

After making attempts to contact the suspect, law enforcement “breached the home and deployed drones to begin an examination of the home,” and located the deceased suspect, Bouchard said.

Police later found a handgun next to the deceased suspect inside the home. A drone that flew into the home while police surrounded it also found what appeared to be an “AR-platform” firearm on the kitchen table, Bouchard said.

“It wouldn’t surprise me – because having that on the kitchen table is not an everyday activity – that there was probably something else, a second chapter, potentially,” Bouchard said.

Police said the investigation is ongoing as they work to “determine if there’s either a digital or a paper trail that would give us some insight” and piece together a timeline of how the shooting unfolded. Whether or not the suspect posted any relevant information on social media or has anything on his devices will also be part of the investigation, officials said.

“It’s gonna be one of those challenges to try to figure out why there appears to be no connection between the victims and the location whatsoever. A person doesn’t live in Rochester Hills. He went to a Rochester Hills Park,” Bouchard said.

Authorities have also recovered video evidence from a nearby camera and are looking for bullet fragments, Bouchard said.

As the investigation continues and new details emerge about the suspect, an attorney who represented Nash in a 2011 bankruptcy case remembered him as a “soft-spoken” individual who suffered in the financial crash of 2007 to 2009.

“I remember Michael because he was very young to be needing bankruptcy. He was yet another person who fell victim to the aftereffects of the 2009 financial crisis,” Kelli Meeks told CNN.

Although Meeks is a licensed attorney, according to the state bar of Michigan, she told CNN she stopped practicing law in 2021 to become a consultant and leadership coach.

Nash was trying to run his own landscaping business, but after the financial crash, Meeks says it did not work out.

She told CNN Nash was about $21,000 in debt and had his car and landscaping equipment repossessed.

“And on top of that, he had medical bills to take care of,” Meeks said. “He was a young man down on his luck.”

Bouchard called Saturday’s incident a “gut punch,” and stressed the community is still reeling from the 2021 shooting at a high school in Oxford, just 15 miles north of Rochester Hills.

“None of us in this room, in this community or in this country, anticipated going into Father’s Day weekend with this kind of tragedy – that families will be deeply affected by forever,” the sheriff said Saturday.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement on X she is in contact with local officials following the shooting.

“I am heartbroken to learn about the shooting in Rochester Hills,” she wrote. “We are monitoring the situation as updates continue to come in, and are in touch with local officials.”

President Joe Biden and White House officials are also tracking the shooting, White House spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said.

CNN’s Emma Tucker, Harlan Schmidt, Zoe Sottile and Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.

Michael William Nash, 42, has been identified as the man who shot up a splash pad in Rochester Hills, Michigan, injuring nine people, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office revealed Sunday morning.

The shooting took place on 5pm Saturday at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad, and Nash is alleged to have fired 28 rounds on the families there that day.

The gunman fled the scene to a nearby home within half a mile of the splash pad, leading to a tense hours-long standoff that ended when the shooter – described as a 42-year-old white male who lived with his mother – died by suicide. 

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters in an impromptu update that Nash had no criminal history and was believed to have mental health issues. 

Among the nine people shot was a group of three individuals who are part of the same family. One was an eight-year-old boy who was shot in the head and remains in critical condition. Another was a four-year-old boy wounded in the thigh who is stable. The boys’ mother, a 39-year-old woman, was hit in the abdomen and leg. She is still in critical condition, according to the sheriff.

The oldest victim was a 78-year-old man who was shot in the abdomen and is in stable condition. 

Detectives are still investigating the possible motive of Nash because they haven’t found a connection between him and his victims.

‘In terms of the “why,” I don´t know,’ Bouchard said. 

Bouchard in an earlier press conference said the shooting ‘appears very random.’

‘It appears like the individual pulled up, exited a vehicle, approached the splash pad, opened fire, reloaded, opened fire, reloaded, left,’ he said.

The suspect was ‘apparently in no rush. Just calmly walked back to his car,’ he added.

At the scene, a Glock 9mm handgun and three corresponding magazines were found by cops. 

Nash died by suicide in a Shelby Township home after he was surrounded by cops for several hours after the attack at the splash pad.

Bouchard said his department made numerous failed attempts to contact the suspect, at which point they sent drones in to examine the home. That’s when Nash was found dead.

Even more chilling, a semi-automatic weapon was found on the kitchen table inside the home Nash was barricading himself inside. Bouchard suggested that Nash may have had plans for a ‘second chapter.’ 

‘It’s a gut-punch,’ Bouchard said at an earlier press conference. ‘We’re not fully comprehending what happened at Oxford and now we have another complete tragedy that we’re dealing with.’ 

Rochester Hills is about 15 miles south of Oxford, where in 2021, then 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley murdered four students at his high school. Last year, the teenager was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Authorities who dealt with the aftermath of the splash pad mass shooting described horrific images of people running for their lives as bullets were flying. They said they saw ice cream cones and flip flops covered in blood. 

Officers’ response time was just under two minutes, thanks to a new kind of 911 response system that allows them to listen to 911 calls live instead of waiting for a dispatcher.

The quickness with which police arrived also contributed to the prevention of further chaos, since Nash was found to have the semi-automatic rifle in his possession. 

Nash´s neighbors told the Detroit News that Nash´s father died two years ago and he lived with his mother, who has been traveling the United States.

‘He´s a loner. The blinds are always pulled over there,’ neighbor Kyleen Duchene told the newspaper.

Nash´s mother was ‘super friendly and nice’ but Nash himself rarely left the house, neighbor Alex Roser said.

‘And when he did, he didn´t even say “hi” back to us when we would acknowledge him,’ Roser said. ‘He was very quiet and didn’t want to be a part of our community.’

The city-run splash pad faces Auburn Road and is located between a T-Mobile cell phone store and Mozzarella’s, a pizzeria, west of the plaza. 

Streets close to the splash pad park were closed by police and emergency personnel Saturday evening.

‘I love my community and my heart breaks today,’ Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan Barnett said. ‘When I got on scene I started to cry because I know what a splash pad is supposed to be. It´s supposed to be a place where people gather, where families make memories, where people have fun.’

Michigan Congressman John James said he was downtown at Huntington Place for former President Donald Trump’s address to Turning Point USA when he heard news of the shooting, and raced to the scene to lend support.

‘Under no circumstances in this country, particularly in Rochester Hills, should fathers be spending Father’s Day in a hospital,’ he said.

‘We’re doing everything we possibly can to help the families in need. And (I want to) give a shout-out to first responders who mitigated further damage and who are still in harm’s way to bring resolution to this crisis.’

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer added in a tweet: ‘I am heartbroken to learn about the shooting in Rochester Hills. We are monitoring the situation as updates continue to come in, and are in touch with local officials.’

Rochester Hills is about 25 miles north of Detroit and has a population of about 76,000 people.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow
Editing by Frances Kerry

President Joe Biden delivered a series of stark warnings about what a second Donald Trump term could hold during a star-studded Los Angeles fundraiser Saturday evening, framing the 2024 presidential election as an inflection point in American history.

“Institutions matter,” the president said. “What (Trump) did on January 6, and now he’s literally saying if he doesn’t win there’ll be a bloodbath — it’s outrageous. What he’s talking about is outrageous.”

The fundraiser, which featured former President Barack Obama, raised more than $30 million for Biden’s reelection efforts, a campaign official told CNN. The conversation between Biden and Obama was moderated by television host Jimmy Kimmel.

Biden specifically argued on Saturday evening that the next four years could see openings on the Supreme Court, potentially leading to the appointment of more conservative justices if Trump is reelected.

“The idea that if he’s reelected he’s going to appoint two more flying flags upside down,” Biden said in an apparent reference to a flag that once flew outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito. Asked by Kimmel whether he considered this the scariest part of a second Trump term, Biden responded, “It is one of the scariest parts.”

“The Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today, I mean never,” the president said, discussing the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and how Justice Clarence Thomas said other rulings could be reconsidered, including on contraception. Someone in the crowd interjected, “including gay rights,” to which Biden responded, “Not on my watch.”

The Biden campaign has been looking to boost his financial war chest amid signs Trump is narrowing the money gap. Biden has led Trump in fundraising for most of the year, but the former president has seen a significant influx in cash come his way since securing the Republican nomination in March. Trump outraised Biden for the first time in April.

“We don’t have to just vote against something in this election,” Obama said. “We have someone to worry about. And there’s a whole agenda that we should be concerned about. But we can take pride in affirming the extraordinary work that Joe has done.”

Obama lamented how some in the country have “normalized behavior that used to be disqualifying,” referencing Trump’s recent conviction in his criminal hush money trial.

“We have the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties siting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts,” Obama said to applause. “His foundation is not allowed to operate because it was engaging in monkey business. … You have his organization being prosecuted for not paying taxes,” Obama said.

Biden interjected, “He paid none.”

When Kimmel asked Biden about “Trump amnesia,” Biden said: “All you got to do is remember what it was like” during Trump’s four years, pointing to Trump’s recommendation that people inject bleach to cure Covid-19.

Obama also urged “those who are conservatively predisposed” – who may not agree with Democrats – to consider the “core values” that shaped the country, like “basic honesty.”

Kimmel asked Obama how he felt about Trump saying he’s done more for Black people than any president in history. Obama replied “One thing he did, for example, was make them feel even better about the first Black president.”

George Clooney and Julia Roberts opened up the night’s program. Barbra Streisand introduced first lady Jill Biden while Jason Bateman, Jack Black, Kathryn Hahn and Sheryl Lee Ralph also entertained the crowd.

As he spoke about a potential second Trump term, Kimmel asked Biden, “What are some things a president can do to, let’s say, a talk show host who has been making fun of him every single night?”

“Ever heard of Delta Force?” Biden joked before striking a more serious tone, “The idea that he’s actually threatened retribution. This is the United States of America. Did you ever think you’d ever, ever, ever hear anything like this? Retribution, that’s what he’s going to do, he’s going to get back at people,” he said.

Kimmel also noted that Biden has said he wanted to restore the soul of the country. “It looks like we might need an exorcism. Is that why you visited the pope?”

“Yeah,” Biden said.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday that Russia’s latest peace proposal for Ukraine would lead to further domination of the country and is a “completely absurd vision.”

He also told reporters China’s absence from the Ukraine Peace Summit is probably a result of entreaties from Russia not to attend.

World leaders gathered at a Swiss mountain resort on Saturday to try to build support for Ukraine’s peace proposals at a summit skipped by US President Joe Biden, shunned by China and dismissed as a waste of time by Moscow.

An exhibition on the fight against Covid in Wuhan, China.Credit…Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

By The New York Times