Bridegroom among four killed in US after wedding party guests are fired on

Fatal shootings outside restaurant in central Buffalo shock locals and spark massive manhunt for gunmen

Paul Harris New York The Observer, Sunday 15 August 2010

A bridegroom celebrating his wedding was believed to have been one of four people killed outside a restaurant in the city of Buffalo yesterday. Four more were wounded.

The gunmen have so far not been identified and a major manhunt is under way in and around the large industrial city in upstate New York.

The tragedy happened outside a downtown Buffalo restaurant called the City Grill at 2.30am yesterday as a large group of about 100 people left at the end of a wedding celebration. The dead included two men and two women, and police have not yet released their identities. However, local news reports said that one of those killed was the groom, who had travelled to Buffalo from Texas.

The Buffalo News reported that one of the dead women was called Tiffany Wilhite, aged 32. "It's just a senseless killing. A senseless random killing. And this kind of thing just has to stop," the victim's father, Raymond Wilhite, told the newspaper.

Police have said they are not sure how many people were involved in the gunfire, and they still do not know whether it happened because of an argument that got out of control or if some of the guests were deliberately targeted. Some witnesses have said a fight broke out inside the City Grill and then spilled on to the streets where the gunfire erupted.

"We're checking to see if something precipitated this from inside," said Buffalo homicide department's chief, Dennis Richards.

The tragedy has left residents of the city deeply shocked. News reports showed grieving friends and relatives gathered outside the restaurant. Bullet holes had shattered windows nearby and three bodies lay in the street for hours while crime scene investigators tried to reconstruct exactly what had happened to trigger the mayhem.

"A lot of people were real upset, just trying to get out of the way," Tommy Dates, 35, told a news agency. Dates had been in the bar of the restaurant when he noticed that the pre-wedding party was ending and that people were leaving. Then, suddenly, people started rushing back in as shots rang out.

"Everyone was in a panic," he said.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/buffalo-killings-wedding-groom-shot