One person has died in Saturday’s “war zone” mass shooting at a Chick-fil-A in Union Township, NJ, according to authorities.
Officials said six other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the attack — which has the grim distinction of being the 100th mass shooting in the US so far this year.
The Union County Prosecutor’s Office said the shooting “does not appear to be a random act of violence.’’ But it did not offer a motive for the violence.
No arrests have yet been made, and authorities are still hunting down the perpetrator or perpetrators, officials said.
The bloody incident unfolded just before 9 p.m. at the fast-food chain’s Route 22 location, which was locked down Sunday as investigators continued to comb the scene for evidence.
A man who said his girlfriend works at the location told CBS that a group of masked men barged into the restaurant and fired multiple shots after forcing their way behind the counter.
One worker’s father described the scene as a “war zone.”
Dakota Santiago (FreedomNewsTV)
Dramatic video from the shooting showed a masked gunman sprinting away from the eatery through the parking lot, with the dashcam also picking up several terrified customers fleeing for their lives.
Detectives were spotted entering and leaving the Chick-fil-A location Sunday afternoon, but none of them were willing to speak.
Several men in hazmat suits were carrying cardboard boxes with big orange “biohazard” stickers on them.
A Lyft driver named Martin said he heard at least seven shots as he drove by while finishing a trip.
“I finished my trip over there, in the return zone. I heard the shots. When I finished the trip, I go to Chick-fil-A to buy two burgers — I see the police, I heard the shots very close,” he told ABC7.
On Sunday, Ben Wegner, who was working at Botera Cannabis across the street from the shooting, told CBS News, “Last night, around 8:20 p.m., 8:25 p.m., there was a lot of commotion on 22, a lot of people running in all sorts of different directions.
“When I came in this morning to review some of the footage, it was craziness,” he said.
The bloodshed marked the country’s 100th mass shooting — or violent event where four or more people are wounded or killed — since the beginning of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The most recent past three years in which data was available — 2023, 2022 and 2021 — all reached the horrific milestone by March.
