Four people were killed in a shooting in east Alabama on Saturday night and multiple people left injured, police said.

WRBL, a local news station, reported that the shooting happened at about 10.30pm Saturday night at a 16th birthday party in Dadeville, about 50 miles north-east of Montgomery.

Pastor Ben Hayes, who serves as the chaplain for the Dadeville police department and for the local high school football team, said most of the victims are teenagers . He said the shooting has rocked the small town where serious crime is rare.

“One of the young men that was killed was one of our star athletes and just a great guy. So I knew many of these students. Dadeville is a small town and this is going to affect everybody in this area,” Hayes said.

It was not immediately known if a suspect was in custody.

The Alabama law enforcement agency confirmed the fatalities in a statement early Sunday announcing its special agents and the local sheriff’s office were investigating the shooting at the request of the Dadeville police chief: “The investigation is a result of a shooting which occurred at approximately 10.34pm near the 200 Block of Broadnax Street in Dadeville, located in Tallapoosa county. Currently, there have been four confirmed fatalities and multiple injuries.”

Investigators believe an altercation had led to the shooting, WRBL reported.

“This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians,” Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama, said in a statement to CNN.

“Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge.”

The shooting comes as two people were killed in a shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday night, days after a gunman shot and killed five people in the city.

Associated Press reported that an unidentified suspect fired a gun into a crowd of hundreds in Chickasaw Park in Louisville, killing two people and wounding four others.

On Monday five people were killed when a man opened fire with an assault-style rifle at the Louisville bank where he worked. Eight others were wounded.

“This has been an unspeakable week of tragedy for our city,” Mayor Craig Greenberg said at the scene of the shooting on Saturday night.

“On Monday, we lost five of our fellow citizens to a horrific act of workplace gun violence,” Greenberg said.

“And now, five days later, we’re at another scene of a reckless act of gun violence.”