9 people have now been arrested in connection with the mass shooting in
Mississippi, FBI says
[October 17, 2025]
By SOPHIE BATES
LELAND, Miss. (AP) — Nine people have now been arrested in connection
with a mass shooting in the Mississippi Delta town of Leland that left
six people dead, an FBI special agent said Thursday.
Robert Eikhoff, special agent in charge of the FBI's Jackson Field
Office, appeared at briefing but gave no additional details of the new
arrests or charges those people face. Authorities had earlier said five
people were in custody.
The downtown street where the shooting took place was still littered
with shards of broken glass Thursday afternoon. Nearby, someone had
placed three stuffed animals and a few candles on a street corner.
State and local law officers who spoke at Thursday's news conference
asked the public to share what they know with authorities.
“We believe there are people who have valuable information who have not
yet spoken with law enforcement,” Eikhoff said.
Several suspects have been charged with capital murder in the shooting
last Friday around midnight that left more than a dozen people injured
in addition to the six killed. Two of the injured are in critical
condition, Eikhoff said.
The FBI’s Jackson Field Office has been posting pictures of suspects
wanted for questioning in the mass shooting. It happened as people
celebrated homecoming weekend in downtown Leland shortly after a high
school football game.
“It's still kind of numbness at this point,” Leland Mayor John Lee said
Thursday. “Families are still grieving, and they don’t have closure
right now. We're talking about funerals not even prepared yet.”
The shooting happened at a community event that's been held for years in
the small downtown area on homecoming weekend “where everybody will
gather in the streets and have a good time,” the mayor said.
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A small memorial sat near the site of the Leland, Miss., mass
shooting on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
“This is not anything that’s happened anywhere close to our
community ever before,” he said.
The Leland shooting was the deadliest of several across Mississippi
last weekend. Other shootings were reported at two other towns where
homecoming football games were being held and at Alcorn State and
Jackson State universities, which were also celebrating homecoming
weekends.
Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for the Leland
shooting, but the FBI has said the gunfire appears to have been
“sparked by a disagreement among several individuals.”
Reseann Mitchell said she is the mother of Terrogernal S. Martin,
33, who is charged with capital murder. She said her son is innocent
and that he was working security at a local business when the
shooting took place.
“He was standing outside all night, and when the shooting took
place, he pushed everyone inside,” Mitchell said. “When he realized
I wasn’t on the inside — he had my purse. He went in my purse and
got my gun out to come outside and look for me.”
Witness Camish Hopkins described seeing people wounded and bleeding
and four people dead on the ground.
“It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” Hopkins said.
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Associated Press writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this
report.
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