!['As [police] approached to break up the altercation, a 16-year-old male from one of the groups pulled out a gun and fired,' West Valley Police said on social media late on Sunday.](https://www.irishtimes.com/resizer/v2/X5BQ25WRDFGCBATK3PPJFVGC7Y.webp?auth=78da6e4670225066c468430c8919622979692052c563a2ea29bbe8196b77c50c&smart=true&width=1024&height=768)
Three people, including an infant, were fatally shot on Sunday night after a verbal altercation led to gunfire at an annual festival in West Valley City, Utah, according to the West Valley City police.
At about 9:20pm local time, officers at the festival, held in a Salt Lake City suburb, saw two groups of people arguing, police said.
“As they approached to break up the altercation, a 16-year-old male from one of the groups pulled out a gun and fired,” police said on social media late on Sunday.
An officer also fired a gun, police said, but did not hit the suspect. The West Valley Police said they had taken a 16-year-old boy into custody.
The person with the gun hit five people. Two bystanders – a 41-year-old woman and an eight-month-old child – were killed, as was an 18-year-old man in one of the groups involved in the dispute, police said.
Two other teenagers, aged 17 and 15, were shot in the arm, police said. They added it was unclear whether those teenagers were from the groups involved in the row.
The shooting happened on the final night of WestFest, which celebrates the establishment of West Valley City as well as its cultural diversity. West Valley City is Utah’s second-largest city, after Salt Lake City, with a population of about 145,000 people.
The fatal shooting came a day after a bystander was killed at a “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City. Armed security workers saw a man handling a rifle near a crowd and fired at him, killing a bystander in the process. The man with the rifle was taken into custody and charged with murder. – The New York Times
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