Carnival argument shooting kills 3 in an unusually violent weekend for Salt Lake City area

A 16-year-old boy shot five people in a confrontation between two groups at a carnival in a Salt Lake City suburb, killing three of them including an 8-month-old infant, police said.

The shooting Sunday in West Valley City happened a day after an apparently unrelated shooting killed a man at a “No Kings” protest and marked an unusually violent weekend in the Salt Lake City area.

Police working at WestFest at Centennial Park, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) southwest of downtown Salt Lake City, saw the two groups begin arguing Sunday night just 100 yards (91 meters) from a police mobile command post.

“As they approached to break up the altercation, a 16-year-old male from one of the groups pulled out a gun and fired,” the department posted on X. One officer fired back but did not hit anyone.

The shooter struck and killed Hassan Lugundi, 18, of West Valley City, in one of the groups. Lugundi appeared to have been an intended target, police said.

Besides the infant boy, whose identity was not released, bystander Fnu Reena, 41, of West Jordan, Utah, was killed. Both died at a hospital.

Reena was not the infant’s mother, though she was in roughly the same line of fire.

Two other teens, a 17-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, had non-life-threatening wounds in the arm, police said.

It was not clear if they were connected to the groups involved. Their identities were not released because they were juveniles.

A pregnant woman was hurt while trying to get over a fence to flee, police said.

The 16-year-old was quickly taken into custody and booked into juvenile detention, police said. He was charged with three counts of homicide, West Valley City spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said at a news conference Monday.

His name would not be released because he was a juvenile, Vainuku said.

Police were interviewing witnesses and fellow officers to find out more about what happened, including whether the confrontation was gang-related, Vainuku said.

Two officers directly involved in the confrontation were being investigated by a Salt Lake City Police Department protocol team because one fired their gun. As a result, they would not be immediately interviewed by West Valley City police, Vainuku said.

“In short, there are simply details we will not know until the investigation is complete,” Vainuku said.

The carnival, a celebration of the establishment of West Valley City and of its cultural diversity, was winding down after drawing as many as 10,000 people over the weekend. Between 1,000 to 2,000 people were still present when the shooting happened, Vainuku said.

The apparently unrelated shooting at the “No Kings” protest the day before happened when a man believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the rally shot at a man brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, striking both the rifleman and a bystander. The rifleman had relatively minor injuries but the bystander died at a hospital.